Choosing Wisely Before Going Into a Wonderful World
by Raxychaz
Summary: Effectively hitting the restart button on life. Steps to a good life are thusly, acquire currency, then power, then clout. Only then shall one be allowed to have a truly tubular day. Rpg's are made to be broken, and so one must break or be broken.
1. Chapter 1

**May be a thing, may not be. **

_No one really expects to wake up in what could be the highest of high fantasy settings, well waking up is probably the wrong way to put it. _

_Passing an interview?_

A young man with shaggy blond curls blinked as his vision suddenly was filled with a great void. He was clothed in dark blue vans, black leggings with ropes tied into holes down the legs, a dark blue button up shirt over a white singlet, but under a black leather jacket with a hood.

Dark green eyes took in the void and squinted at the sight of light, across from him - only at that moment did he notice he was sitting down - a shaft of light opened to reveal a beautiful young woman.

She had fair skin, like himself though without the freckles, and wore an attire vaguely close to a Nun's, habit and all.

She had white hair and light purple eyes, she looked at him with pity.

Which confused him, all things said and done.

"Welcome, young Mr. Zachary Waller. To purgatory." Her voice was gentle and welcoming.

Zac felt the same sensation that came with dreaming, like moving was harder - akin to trying to move through water - and sound didn't quite sync up to the things making those sounds.

He tried to respond but couldn't really form a coherent thought.

She looked at him sadly, "I'm very sorry to say but you're dead. You were stabbed in the throat."

His eyes widened but he still couldn't speak, couldn't comprehend what had been said fully.

"You're friends are all well, though they are quite distraught. I'll admit Mr. Waller… I didn't expect to see you so soon, but you do have your mother's features." She said with a smile.

It was like having cold water dumped on his head, "Wha-what, uh happened?"

"Most have trouble remembering their moments of death, fret not. You attempted to tackle a man who was harassing your friend Wade, with a knife." The Woman informed him, a moment of reflection attested to her words.

"So-so he's all good, yeah?" Death, whoo boy. That was not something he was comfortable with.

Zac's greatest fear and he could barely take a second to appreciate the gravity.

The woman nodded, "I am Eris. A goddess that watches over a few realms, yours being one of them."

The young man looked at her skeptically, making her face flush slightly, "Mhm… so what's the go? Shipped off to hell for the heresy and all that?"

Eris looked confused, "No, you've never performed any great act of evil, and generally lived a just life. Your karmic balance is firmly in the positive."

"Well waddaya know?" Zachary asked rhetorically, looking slightly impressed.

"Now, as a goddess I have a few domains to look after and generally when one passes through purgatory myself or my senior - who is no longer able to - give those that visit us a few options." Eris cleared her throat and sat a little straighter, making the young man do the same.

"You may enter the gates of heaven, reveling in eternal bliss and reunite with your loved ones that you've lost." Eris said, getting a nod of understanding from the man.

"Secondly you may reincarnate into a different world, starting your life anew free from the burden of your past life." He frowned at that, making Eris get a slight chill up her spine.

He seemed pleasant enough but his dress sense made her a slight uneasy.

"Finally you can enter another world that requires help, a world that is being ruled over by a creature known as the Demon King, as a hero to save the world you are able to take an artefact of power and be granted a blessing, though if one is much more powerful than the other, it will have to be mitigated somewhat."

"So what, like I have a space of 100 and have to pick something that fits within that." Zac said with a quirked brow.

Eris nodded, "My senior would compare this world and these gifts to 'RPG's, does that mean anything to you?"

Zachary chuckled, his green eyes sparkling somewhat as delight and glee seemed to radiate from his person from a moment, "Very much so."

Eris felt her spirit lift at such a genuine expression of joy.

With a slight gesture a small book - though holding infinite pages - appeared and sat itself in the young man's lap, "Please take your time to peruse the selection and we may go from there."

Zachary did consider going to heaven before he did anything else but he lived - and died as it were - by something his mother had said to him several times before her passing, 'Live your life, don't let tragedy change who you are.'

He could imagine her looking at him now, telling him to do what he thought was best for him. And whilst he'd do literally anything to see her again, he wasn't ready to give up after 23 years and live the rest of eternity in the clouds.

No, he had more of a life to live before he through in the towel just yet.

Zachary opened the book and several holographic images formed and floated around him, some being dossiers on magic weapons, armour even more sci-fi items.

Without thinking he took a durry (That's Australian for Cigarette) from his jacket and lit it, crossing one leg over the other whilst he read through his options.

Eris sweatdrop at the casual reclining he was doing.

Turning page after page Zachary finally got to the end of his dart (Another Australianism for ciggy) "Think I've got it."

Eris seemingly turned back in, having 'gone' somewhere else during his time, "What have you chosen?"

"Well, I'm not a super buffman so I figured go with the ol' Skyrim methon, for a Boon I'd like to take **[Shadestalker]** because crouching to disappear into a cast shadow is bullshit." Zachary said, getting a nod from Eris, who didn't seem bothered by his language.

"And for an item I'll pull from my roots, **[Thoridal, the Stars Fury]** I know it's a Legendary Weapon, but I mostly I chose it because it generates it own arrows, and as someone who played Warcraft when you had to buy arrows, that'll save cash in the long run." Zachary flicked his dart into the void and snapped the book shut.

Eris nodded, a small smile on her face. With a gesture the book disappeared and she bestowed upon her charge the gifts he'd chosen.

Thoridal, the Stars Fury was a gorgeous bow made of incredibly lightweight metal, the wings of the bow had hawk heads resting on either side of the hand-guard, two long blue crystals tipped each end of the bow, with a focusing crystal in the centre, directly where one would drawn and arrow back.

The Boon came in the form of a small black sun mark on his neck, looking like a slightly aged tattoo.

"I wish you luck on your quest, Mr. Waller." Eris said, standing from her chair, Zachary mirroring her as he bowed his head slightly.

"Forgive me if I get sidetracked."

"I fully expect it." Eris admitted in a moment of real-talk, "If you run into others from your world, try not to be too hard on them, if they choose to be inactive."

Before Zachary could ask though he was standing in a field outside of what appeared to be some kind of city, a rolling landscape sprawling behind him and a stone path before him.

"Oh… well then."

**Takes place after week 1 of anime.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Cheers for the positivity. Appreciate the good vibes.**

**That's how you say the same thing, but differently.**

**Haven't watched the show, only read fanfic. What a meme.**

The first thing Zachary did, as all those who began games did, was find a 'quest giver'. His first self-afflicted quest was to find the local haunt for would be do-gooders.

After getting some directions he found himself before the guild building, pretty big if he did say so himself, kind of felt stupid for not seeing it to begin with.

He opened the doors and his eyes zeroed in on a big tiddy gf.

Blonde hair with a single curl down the right side of her face, bright honey-yellow eyes and fair skin, her outfit concerned him somewhat, as it didn't make sense how it stayed up, no straps over the shoulders and way to deep in the cleavage to be feasible, with a pointless red ribbon around her neck.

She spotted him and smiled brightly, "Welcome to the Adventurers Guild. I'm Luna, how can I help you?"

Zac strode across the guild hall and to the counter, getting a few glances as he did, what with the legendary bow strapped across his back. "Wondering if I could register with the guild."

"Of course, the registration is 1000 eris, though if you do not have the funds we can simply take it out of your first quest payment." She paused so she could get her answer.

"I'll have to do that, don't exactly have the local currency on hand." Zachary admitted, Luna nodded and continued.

"Next, we'll need to get you registered. Place your hand on this orb and it will create your guild card, which will allow you to take advantage of the Job system and keep track of quest information." Luna explained, gesturing to a revolving sapphire coloured orb with many arcane scripts across it.

"Interesting stuff." Zac said to himself, pushing his left jacket-sleeve up somewhat and placing his hand on the orb, within a moment it spat out a cobalt blue card with an image of him upon the face of it, and several details on the back.

Luna looked it over and nodded appreciatively, "Very good, all done Mr. Waller. Did you need anything else?"

"Mind giving me a quick run-down on this?" Zachary asked, Luna seemed quite lovely so he was hoping to avoid taking too much of her time, woman was probably quite busy.

"Not a problem. On the front here you'll see your physical attributes, these signify your general apittude with certain jobs."

**[Zachary A. Waller **

**Jobless**

**Strength: 8 Dexterity: 16**

**Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16**

**Wisdom: 14 Luck: 20]**

"With your quite impressive stats for a new adventurer you'll be able to pick quite a few starting jobs, and quickly get to a more advanced job. Did you have anything in mind?" Luna asked, tilting her head somewhat.

"Considering the bow, is there a ranger or archer job?" Zachary asked, not seeing anything listed upon the card.

"To change your job you simply have to press the currently listed job under your name and a small window will appear." Luna did just that and a rather substantial list popped up.

**[Available Jobs:**

**Strength Based; Fighter**

**Dexterity Based;Scout, Thief, Saboteur, Ranger, Hunter.**

**Intelligence Based; Wizard, Arch-Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock.**

**Luck Based; Fortunate**

**Free Job; Adventurer]**

"Some jobs give advantages over others, and whenever you manage to complete quests or gain levels you acquire skill points, skill points can be spent in any job tree but it is best to pick one at the beginning to allow yourself to grow into a role." Luna informed, getting a firm nod from the shaggy blond man.

"You also said it could track quest information?" Zachary asked curiously, Luna handed it to him flipped over and on the back was a section written Quests, Log, and Kill Count.

"Each of those tabs will open to reveal what your need to know at any given time." Luna said with a sweet smile, quite refreshed to have a simple interaction that didn't involve her breasts being mentioned.

"Marvelous, thank you very much for your help-is that the board over there?" Zachary gestured to a simple board with several posted pages upon the surface.

"Certainly is, all you have to do to acquire a quest is simply bring it to me at the counter, I'll put it into the system and the orb will send the information to your card. As you're new I'd suggest the Giant Toad hunt. Most beginners take it, and the risk of serious injury is quite minor." Luna advised.

Zachary did just that, a simple extermination quest to kill giant toads outside the city, the most basic of basic bitch quests.

The quest was worth 5000 eris, which considering was the fee for the guild probably wasn't a lot but at the very least he'd be able to get rid of his debt and have a little extra coin.

For completion one was rewarded a meal ticket and an additional 500 eris per toad past the required five.

Picking Hunter on his Card Zachary set off with a smile on his face.

**Axel Fields**

The rolling landscape was gorgeous, truth be told. Bright green grass, a clear blue sky that stretched as far as the eye could see.

And a shit ton of dopey looking toads sitting in clusters around a few of the hills.

With a shrug Zachary pulled Thori'dal off his back and drew a shot, it was a little odd considering there was no resistance, with a steady arm and a calm breath he released the arrow.

A streak of blue shot across the distance between him and the toads, going directly through one and exploding upon impact with another, startling the giant beasts.

Zachary blinked owlishly at that, he expected a lot considering they were weak as ants in comparison to the bow but jeezy beeze that was fucking insane.

The dead toads flopped wetly onto the ground, which stirred up the others.

With his firing arm Zachary pointed at one of the toads, **Hunter's Mark** was one of his basic spells that would curve an arrow towards the target and made it much harder to lose track of something, what with the great big red icon floating over its head.

With a chuckle he drew back his arrow, "It really is just WoW at this point."

Firing off another shot he watched as this one exploded on initial impact and knocked the other toads onto their sides.

With another draw he held it for a moment, holding his breath and allowing the energy to gather, **Arcane Shot** was a simple arrow infused with magical energy but it did more damage than an average arrow.

This time the toad just ceased to exist, disappearing in a shower of magical motes.

"Much more pleasing to the eye." Zachary strode over to the pile of chaos he'd caused and held his nose, "Not pleasing to the nose though.

Pulling his guild card out of his jacket he saw the quest was completed with a few extra kills.

Figuring to continue his work he took to exterminating the other toads in the immediate area, as god quite literally intended.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Previously, Zachary found out that taking a level 70 Legendary Bow into a starting zone took the danger out of pretty much everything.**_

_**Because that was a lesson that needed learning, right?**_

Zac sat at a wooden table with a drink in one hand, and a durry in the other. Since pipe smoking was acceptable inside no one seemed to kick up a fuss that he was slowly killing himself with that fag in his hand.

Taking a draw and blowing the smoke out an open window he smiled at the sight of a setting sun, it was truly a gorgeous sight.

Tomorrow he'd get himself some new clothes, now that he had a good little pile of coin to his name. And a dagger or two, to make sure he had them on hand.

Letting go of his drink, local cider that wasn't too bad actually, he pulled his guild card out of his jacket, setting it down he pawed through the menu's available and smiled brightly, a pure twinkle in his eye at the sight before him.

**Available Skills - Hunter**

**Tame Beast 1 SP**

**Serpent Sting 1 SP**

**Raptor Strike 1 SP**

**Concussive Shot 1 SP**

It really was like being the hero of a game, it made his heart swell and his cheeks hurt from smiling too much, he took **Tame Beast** and **Serpent Sting** and left the others for the moment.

Tame Beast did exactly what it said on the tin, you had to lure a beast towards you and channel the natural magic Hunter's used to perform their spells and create a bond between yourself and the beast.

Typically it couldn't be done on anything stronger than you, or special kinds of beasts, like Hippogryphs and Chimera. Though in Warcraft manuals on taming those beasts did eventually come out, he had to see what rules the world he currently resided in played by.

Serpent Sting was a very simple ability that suffused poisonous magic into a shot and made it so that it slowly ate away at whatever it was in, with no cast time and minimal mana cost it was a no-brainer to add more damage onto his skills.

Even with Thori'dal he had to be smart with what skills he picked up.

Slipping his card away again Zachary looked around, no one seemed really interested in talking to him, which he was sort of okay with. It was a little lonely in the new world, and he was usually quite good at meeting new people, he enjoyed it actually.

It just felt like everyone kept him at arm's length for some reason, probably thought he was foreign.

He was actually so it made more sense upon pondering it.

With a hum he left the table, hooking his bow over his shoulder again and leaving the guild.

He'd buy those clothes before he went to bed, and treat himself in that local spa.

**That Evening**

It was Zachary's first experience with an outdoor bath, he'd had outdoor showers but never a bath.

Whilst usually his hair was wild and fluffy when dry, he looked like a drowned rat when wet, which he noted to his own amusement.

The owner did try to avoid having a weapon in his spa but Zachary would not be parted from his Thori'dal at any cost so there it sat, safely aside the spa sitting between two rocks and within reach and sight of its master at all times.

He began thinking over what kind of pet he'd take, a carnivore would be easiest to handle as it would be the easiest to keep fed and happy. A herbivore like a giant toad would be a lot tricker to feed and care for in different environments, whilst an avian would be good for all kinds of extra trickery, especially if he ended up with Eyes of the Beast.

Smiling widely Zachary looked up slightly admiring the star filled sky, "Bloody hell that's gorgeous." He said fondly, leaning back against the rocks, one hand still on his bow.

The door to the entrance opened and another person stepped out, a young woman actually, "O-oh! I'm sorry!"

She immediately dashed back inside and slammed the door, Zachary tensed at being seen naked so suddenly, "I didn't think anyone else would be here this early!"

Early? It's already dark, what kind of people take so long to have a bloody bath.

"I wasn't aware it was mixed." Zac responded, raising his voice slightly. He was a generally loud person so his voice carried extremely well.

"I-it usually isn't I guess the schedule changed!"

"Well I was about to get out anyway, so if you don't mind I'll pop out." Zac stood up and threw a towel around his waist, grabbing his bow and leaving the warm bath, his skin steaming pleasantly, he opened the door to see the young woman in question.

White-to-lavender hair, familiar purple eyes and skin tone.

She flushed bright red as she stared up at the much taller person, who's only decency was that of a white towel.

"Oh, Eris. It's you." Zac said with a slight sigh of relief, "Hope you have a good bath."

The girl- Eris as far as Zac was concerned - went from red to pale in a second.

"S-s-s…." She stuttered out as he walked past her and began putting on his clothes, without letting the towel fall to expose his junk to the small female near him.

'_So easily!? How did he spot me so easily!?_' She ranted in her head, no one had ever been able to see through her Chris disguise so easily, sure she hadn't reincarnated many people, but not even Aqua could spot her and yet this man already had, how?

"Well, I hope you enjoy your god-break and wish you luck when you get back to work." With a smile Zachary threw on his new white shirt and black cloak.

He got to wear a cloak and no-one even questioned it! What an absolute rippa! **(Australianism for great)**

Taking the towel away revealed black trousers that were quickly followed by woolen socks and black boots, he had the option of brown but black beat brown at all steps.

Black was sleek, brown was dirt.

With his dirty clothes being washed that evening, Zac took his bow and headed up into the room he'd rented, it he stayed there each night he'd be able to do it for a week if he took his meals at the guild after killing frogs at midday and got something light in the evening.

So he had a surefire method to acquire funds each day, and a place to sleep until he saved up enough for his own. A win all 'round.

"Suppose the only hard part will be making friends so I don't just start talkin' to whatever I tame." Zac said to himself as he unlocked his room and stepped in, hanging his cloak up and locking the door.

"I think the only problem is that my sense of humour has been so warped by growing up on the net, any attempt at humour will probably fall flat." Zac lamented as he slipped off his boots and wriggled into bed, bow still in reach and a pitcher of water with a glass on his side table.

"An effort shall be made on the morrow, methinks." He said finally before the cozy feeling of sleep began to creep up on him and he slipped right into a slumber that only a day of activity could bring.

**End**

**They will get longer when I put in other characters.**

**I'm taking suggestions for group mates.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for positivity bois.**

**Feel my returned love.**

** T.**

**[Zachary A. Waller**

**Hunter 12/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 14 Dexterity: 34**

**Constitution: 24 Intelligence: 24**

**Wisdom: 19 Luck: 29]**

'_Killing giant crocodiles? Fucking awesome!_' Zachary said with a wide grin on his face, as he pulled a flier off the board, Luna looked up from who she was speaking to and waved him down.

"How are you adjusting to the town, Mr. Waller?" Luna asked with a tilt of her head, her ever present smile still creasing her lips.

"Quite well actually." Zac said with a brilliant smile, Luna noticed how his eyes had a slight twinkle to them in the morning when he smiled, it was quite lovely if she did say herself.

"This town is very much my speed, I'll admit. Quite enough to enjoy the serenity of the countryside, but busy enough that I can get whatever I need done within a decent time." Zac praised Axel whilst rubbing his chin in thought, "It really is the perfect place for adventurers to begin."

Luna took no small amount of pride in his praise, half the job of the guild was to keep towns operating at decent paces, and to have such high praise given to the town itself and the area around it made her feel even better about becoming an attendant, if only more people had this man's outlook, her job would be much easier.

She cast a glance to the regular bums sitting in the guild hall for lunch, not many of them would willingly quest unless they had to pay for something or were running out of money, and yet the man before her took at _least_ one job a day and was quickly becoming one of the more powerful members of the guild, and he'd only been with them for a week.

He had admitted it was mostly because of the Legendary Bow his father had apparently passed down to him, but Luna was firm in her idea that he was a decent sort, if for nothing else his work ethic.

Taking the slip of paper she read it over quickly, "Ah the Crocolisk infestation, quite nasty creatures. Are you sure you wanted to go alone?"

Zac thought about it for a moment and did a scan of the guild, finding no one that really stood out he shrugged, "Nah, should be fine- actually do you know if there's anyone I can talk to about picking up a Skinning skill/profession? I wanted to do something with the hides if possible."

Luna's own smile turned radiant at his forethought, "Of course, if you'll give me a moment I can get a Knowledge Crystal that we keep at the guild for just such things, it doesn't get used very often but I can give you the beginning path for most activities not related to combat."

Zachary grinned and nodded enthusiastically, "This place is amazing, thanks for everything Luna."

The blonde woman preened once more under such praise and left to fetch the Profession Orb.

Zach leant into the counter and allowed himself to sag in content, there was this potent joy that seemed to swarm in his heart whenever he walked into the guild and took a new quest, knowing for a fact that each day he spent here he moved towards becoming stronger and stronger.

In a weird way he wanted to be worthy of having Thori'dal, as sort of like a self-imposed quest, to gain enough power to justify his having the artefact.

He smiled at what looked like a large gauntlet on his left hand, turns out the bow can fold in on itself and he could just wear the massive guard on his hand to avoid it getting pinched.

A pair of knives sat on his hip, he'd decided to take a few points into Rogue to compliment his Hunter skills.

He already had the boon to improve his stealth, but having the actual **Stealth** ability made it so he could effectively move around invisible without a chance of getting spotted.

And being able to use melee skills like **Ambush **and **Backstab**, worked out in his favour when he finally got around to picking up a pet.

Perhaps he'd take one of the Crocolisks, actually it sounded like a great idea. A giant armoured carnivore made a perfect shield for him to throw at his enemies.

His face pulled into an even bigger grin as he thought about his plans, about his new life, about all the things he found himself doing and enjoying.

It truly was a wonderful world he'd found himself in.

**Later**

After picking up a **Skinning Knife** from the general store Zachary set out, the reason he picked one up instead of a normal knife, or even using his daggers, was that a **Skinning Knife** added +10 to skinning attempts, and as he'd only just picked up the skill it would literally make him 10 times better when using it.

The lake was an hour or so away by foot which he didn't mind, as he was taking shots at whatever animal he came across to skin it and get his skill up before making it to the water.

Kneeling down Zachary twitched a finger and Thori'dal unfolded, he drew and arrow back and took aim at a large doe, that was grazing next to it's fawns.

He grimaced feeling like he was re-enacting Bambi or something, and fired off a shot at the doe's head. Taking it clean off, and quickly followed by doing the same to the fawns.

Jogging over he skinned them and bundled the hides and meat into his bag of holding, before **Stealth**ing and following their tracks.

He quickly came across the buck, and dropped his stealth, the creature went tense as the Hunter remained motionless, slowly raising his hand Zachary rose his hand and activated **Tame Beast.**

A flash of green energy began to draw the beast in, the buck's eyes glazed over as it's instincts were overwritten, the independence in its mind turned to loyalty to the Hunter before it.

The buck struggled slightly as it tried it's best to fight off the magic but Zachary's will was incomprehensible to the buck and thus it could not defend itself against the spell, the herbivore broke as the spell finished.

Standing up straight and folding his bow Zachary approached the buck, it accepted his touch easily enough, throwing a few of the collected pelts over the creatures back he jumped up and tapped it with his ankles, the buck began to move towards the 'road' at a steady pace.

Zac kept his hands on the creatures shoulders and thought how intensely screwed up it was that he was using the skin of the creatures children and partner as padding.

'_This is a next level power move_.'

As Buck carried him onwards Zac's eyes were on the sky, one thing he did notice was that this world had no cap on how many pets one could possess, so he planned on making a small horde of animals.

**Lakeside**

Zachary slipped of Buck and put the pelts into his pouch of holding on his belt, a damn fine investment if ever there was one.

He activated the spell **Track Beasts**,doing so caused his eyes taking on a feline shape and flashing bright crimson, several large red shapes lit up in the water, with a grin he pulled out several chunks of meat and threw them into the shallows, and having Buck return to the grassier plain above the shoreline.

Zachary took several steps away from the waters edge and knelt down, unfolding his bow and drawing a shot.

An enormous purple crocodilian slid out of the water with a mouthful of meat, it's scales like armoured plates with dark horns growing behind each eye, and large black ridges down its spine.

Zachary fired off an **Arcane Shot** it burnt right through the creatures skull leaving a hunk of cold-blooded meat in place of the Giant Crocolisk.

With a grin Zachary readied another shot, the others noticed his presence and began lumbering up the shoreline.

Two more shot pierced the air and cut right through the largest of his targets, making a flesh wall between him and the others, standing up he fired off a **Serpent Sting** at one, it's scales immediately turning a sickly green as little skulls floated off its body, showing it's poisoned status.

Holding his bow horizontally Zachary fired off a **Multi-Shot** which worked like a shotgun spray, firing off a wave of arrows at all enemies within range, Thori'dal made it look like a massive wave of energy in place of arrows, which Zachary was exceptionally pleased to see.

With seven already killed and more on their way Zachary turned to the nearest one and cast **Tame Beast** the magic immediately overcame the simple creatures mind to the point where it flopped onto the shoreline in a daze.

With that one stunned Zachary turned and fired off three more shots into another that was getting a little close.

The lakewater broke as an enormous Crocolisk breached the surface, creating waves that lapped at even the Hunter's feet, the Crocolisk was easily quadruple the size of its peers, with a wide grin the Hunter whistled.

Buck immediately shot past him and gored the creature at it's side, and the tamed Crocolisk, Steve, began hazing it to draw it's attention.

Zac took a deep breath and drew back a shot, storing a large chunk of his mana into it,'_**Aimed Shot**__ was seems like this worlds armour piercing round, if the description is anything to go by._'

A massive spear-like arrow shot from his bow as he released the shot, his body immediately aching from the loss of so much mana, the spear shot _through_ the Alpha Crocolisk and cut the lake itself, parting right down the middle and cutting the clouds asunder, the shot kept going until, just barely within hearing distance, a dull explosion was heard, birds flying out of the forests in a great panic.

Blinking owlishly Zachary allowed **Track Beasts** to fade as he flopped onto his arse, "Fuck armour piercing that's a goddamn warhead!"

**End**


	5. Chapter 5

**I am sick, give me reviews to feed my ego.**

**Real-talk though, if you want more of something I need a response on it, I write half for fun and half to read what people think about it. So if something isn't getting a lot of interaction I'll assume it's not going well.**

**If so that's cool, if that's not, please inform me to the contrary.**

**[Zachary A. Waller**

**Hunter 15/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 14 Dexterity: 37**

**Constitution: 25 Intelligence: 25**

**Wisdom: 20 Luck: 30]**

**Items Collected from Quest**

**1 Great Crocolisk Hide**

**42 Great Crocolisk Teeth**

**8 Crocolisk Hides**

**312 Crocolisk Teeth**

Zachary looked over the items he'd collected from the various skinless reptiles around him and smiled, he fed Samson - the one he'd tamed - a piece of deer meat whilst Buck returned to grazing.

Looking at the massive pile of meat that was once the Great Crocolisk he had to admit, it felt pretty good to be stupidly powerful.

"Now, if I know anything about games it's that this fucking thing has got some kind of loot, either it's hoarding it or it's eaten something..." Scratching his head Zachary opened his character page and took the skill **Eyes of the Beast** and cast it on Samson.

The creatures body immediately surrendered control to it's Hunter, the spell allowed Zachary to control and see through the eyes of his pets, using Samson's body he dove into the waters and looked around for a few minutes.

The only downside to this spell was that Zachary was more or less completely defenceless.

Buck observed a group of humans going near his Hunter and trotted closer to observe them, they were one male and three females, of varying colours that confused Buck's eyes.

The male began prodding his Hunter, so Buck moved down the soft ground and stood aside his Hunter, staring down at the green male.

The green male attempted to make Buck move but he would not and instead struck out with his hoof at the green male's leg, making it hiss and scamper away.

The green male bleated like a goat whilst the blue female laughed at him, the red female said something and struck the green male with a stick whilst the yellow woman stared at him with a strange gaze.

Buck huffed and scuffed the soft ground with his hooves, making his intent clear.

The yellow woman put herself between Buck and her other coloured companions.

Buck turned to look at his Hunter as the magic left him, and he returned to his own body.

Zachary blinked as he returned from puppeteering Samson, Buck was standing beside him and a group of four colour coordinated people were near him.

"What's with your angry deer!?" Kazuma Satou, a Japanese Hero-Candidate that had died not long ago. Unfortunately for Kazuma instead of a cheat-weapon or boon, he was stuck with a retarded Goddess that put him in his predicament to begin with.

Kazuma was an average sort, chestnut brown hair and bright green eyes, fair skin from his lack of want to be outside and a shortsword at his side.

"Hey, you're that weird guy from the guild." Kazuma said, pointing at the Hunter who blinked.

"I am _a_ weird guy from the guild, yes." Zachary admitted, "I'd hardly say I was the only one."

Kazuma waved him off, "Right-right, so what's the deal with that?"

Zachary followed his pointed finger to the 'brace' on his wrist, "My bullshit item."

Darkness and Megumin, the yellow and red females respectively, looked confused, but Aqua and Kazuma understood it.

Kazuma grimaced with envy, whilst this guy got an item that could make him independant he got stuck with a group of problem children.

Aqua snorted, "So it seems my Kohai has sent another one of your ilk, Kazuma."

Zachary looked at her with a quirked brow, "What weeaboo trash unironically says 'kohai'."

Aqua squawked at him but Kazuma snorted, "Ha! Take that you useless Goddess!"

"How dare you talk to me like that!" Aqua howled, "Stupid mortal, do you know who I am!? I Am Aqua Goddess of Water, Patron of the Axis Cult!"

"So by definition, you're a weeaboo. If you're a goddess you hold no nationality, thereby making your usage of the word 'kohai' the act of a filthy weeb." Zachary pointed out easily enough, making Kazuma snicker more and more as Aqua turned red.

The contrast between her blue hair, eyes, clothing, and how red her face was, was quite startling actually.

"I know not what this, 'Weeaboo' is but i can assume it is a slur, and must ask you recount your word, sir." The blonde crusader said, her dark green eyes spoke of her determined spirit, but just as she spoke her face flushed red, "If you must spread harsh words aim only at me!"

Zachary was all for kinky freedom, but it didn't really feel like the time or place for such things.

Samson chose that moment to break the surface of the lake, in his massive jaws was a metal chest covered in algae and moss.

Team Problem Child screamed at the massive crocolisk charging towards them, only for Zachary to step forward and Samson to dump it at his feet, wagging his tail like a good dog.

"Well done, Samson." Zachary pulled another hunk of deer out of his pack and threw it to the massive beast, it greedily ate the meat before following Buck's example and staring down the chromatically coloured foursome.

"Wh-what the hell!?" Kazuma screeched in terror.

Zachary looked at him with a quirked brow, before shaking his head and kneeling down before looking at the chest and pulling out one of his daggers, jamming it into the lock his card alerted him that his Lockpicking skill had gone up.

Looking at the chest he noticed it hadn't opened.

An idea.

He began rapidly stabbing the lock with his dagger, gaining minimal experience but with each jab his bar rapidly began to climb.

"What the hell is this weirdo doing?" Megumin asked, leaning into her staff.

"Looks like he's stabbing a chest." Kazuma said with a bland look on his face, of course even reincarnates like himself weren't immune to the stupidity that the world he'd found himself in seemed to spread.

"He does seem to be keeping a firm eye on his Guild Card though, perhaps he's doing this for a reason?" Darkness asked curiously, tilting her head.

"Exp-farming." Zachary said breezily, a little grin on his face as he kept stabbing the lock like a madman, ignoring any potential cramping in his forearm as the bar kept climbing.

"Eris was right, this place is an absolute gas." The blond man said with a snicker.

"AHA! That's why you're such a loser who can't appreciate the magnificent me! You were put here by my stupid junior!" Aqua said, it all made sense now.

"Eris is best girl." Zac responded with a wave of his hand, not believing it but more than sure it'd piss off the loud woman.

And it did.

"Ah! A fellow Eris follower!" Darkness was by his side in a second, lurking beside him with intensity. "Truly the Goddess has favoured me with her own fortune, to have met another like minded individual on the road!"

Theatrics it shall be!

"Fortune indeed, my dear!" Zachary said standing up and placing both hands on his hips, something Darkness quickly mirrored, "For only we, the truly faithful are guided by her divine hands in such a way, so that we may meet and spread her word amongst those misguided!"

Darkness' smile glowed with the potency of a thousand suns, and her eyes watered, "Your words burn at my breast like a righteous flame! What is your name brother?"

"I am Zachary Alexander Waller, and it is beyond a pleasure to be guided to your good company this day, sister!" Offering his hand it was quickly taken and shaken with the ferocity that only one truly devout could muster.

"I am Dustiness Ford Lalatina, but you may call me Darkness, brother!" She looked up at him like he was a sign from Eris herself, Lalatina felt her heart swell with divine joy at the sight of him.

"You two actually could pass for siblings." Megumin pointed out with mild interest, having checked out at the beginning of their rambling. "Both blond, with green eyes and similar skin tones.

"A cousin perhaps?" Darkness considered, "Are you of Noble blood, sir?"

"Only the noblest of lineages!" Zachary responded with a wide, exaggerated grin on his face, "For the Waller family dates back centuries in my native land, known for our stalwart nature, like the Walls our ancestors built."

'_This guy is so full of shit._' Kazuma said with a roll of his eyes.

"That's incredible!" Darkness gushed with a super-nova smile.

'_She believes him!?_' The Japanese man almost felt himself scream at the ridiculousness of it all.

"Alas, I am the only member of my family in this land, which is why I took to the life I have. I seek to work my way into this nation's gracious history by being the very hero it may need, it is a vainglorious dream but I shall accomplish it with all determination regardless for there is always a need for a hero!"

Darkness literally began to sob openly at his proclamation, "You have a bard's tongue but a lions heart, I've never met another with such unshakable spirit as you!"

The blonde woman became increasingly pumped up as he spoke though and turned to her party, "We must return to town immediately, and take the hardest quest possible, there is no time to wait!"

With her immense strength she corralled her party and beat feet towards Axel once more, "Until we meet again, Brother!"

"A fair day to you, Sister! Eris be with you!" Zachary said as he waved them off.

Turning to his pets his expression was drenched in mirth, "This place is awesome."

Samson flopped down on the beach, swollen from eating all of his kin whilst his Hunter was speaking, and Buck retreated to the grass once more.

Waving them off, Zachary finally cracked open the chest and was blinded for a moment by the light within.

Almost as though it spat them out several items dotted the shoreline behind Zachary.

A large greatsword with a silver-white blade and a dark blue hilt, the crossguard was as broad as the blade itself, making it almost useless but the weapon itself looked intimidatingly beautiful in a way, maybe fifteen - give or take - centimetres from edge to edge.

Secondly was a fist weapon of some kind, a brace made of black leather with four long azure hooked claws that would sit over the fist, each being twenty centimetres long and curving slightly in the centre.

Lastly was a pair of black shoulder guards, they looked slightly scuffed and worn, but were made of leather, and bore dozens of crocolisk teeth at the outer linings.

Picking the final drop up first he screamed to the heavens, "I GOT SHOULDERS!"

Truly, this world was marvelous.

**End**

**That's a sneaky reference to old Wow for ya.**

**The best part of getting to mid-teen early twenties in terms of leveling, shoulder armour.**

**Hope you enjoyed this and if you did, let me know. First human interaction that wasn't Luna or Eris/Chris so hopefully it was decent.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Special double-length episode.**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 18**

**Hunter 15/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 14 Dexterity: 37**

**Constitution: 25 Intelligence: 25**

**Wisdom: 20 Luck: 30]**

**Hunter Skills: **

**Arcane Shot - A magical shot the deals X magic damage on hit.**

**Serpent Sting - A magical shot the deals X corrosive poison damage over 5 seconds.**

**Multi-Shot - A magically charged shot that spreads magical copies of your arrow at all targets within an X metre range.**

**Aimed Shot - an armour piercing warhead that deals colossal magical damage on hit and continues until it hits something strong enough to detonate, dealing an additional X damage.**

**Utility;**

**Eyes of the Best - A spell that allows the Hunter to control their pets directly.**

**Track Beasts - A spell that reveals all beasts within an area to the hunter.**

**Tame Beast - Uses natural magic to establish a master-servant bond with a beast.**

**Hunter's Mark - A magical tracking spell that arcs any fired munition towards the target, and allows the Hunter to know their position at any time.**

**Dismiss Pet - Return your currently active pet(s) to the aether where they will remain in stasis until called upon again.**

**Summon Pet - Call forth your stored companion(s) from the aether.**

**Rogue Skills;**

**Stealth - Shrouds in shadows and makes one harder to perceive.**

**Ambush - A visceral strike from Stealth that has guaranteed critical damage and can cause hemorrhaging, dealing X damage over 10 seconds.**

**Backstab - A dagger strike to the lower back, that causes X damage over 10 seconds.**

**Boon; **

**Shadestalker - Whenever the blessed in in shadows of any kind they can become untraceable to the eye.**

**Non-Combat Skills; **

**Skinning (Apprentice) 75/75**

**Leatherworker (Apprentice) 5/75**

**Lock Picking (Rogue) 36/900**

**Cooking (Apprentice) 50/75**

Zachary looked at the card before him and all the information on display with a jubilant glitter in his eyes, having returned to the guild feeling like a champion, with all the hides he'd gotten from the crocolisk he'd have plenty of fodder to level up his leatherworking during his downtime.

Which was something he was actually invested in, he'd saved up enough money to put a down-payment on a small house near the centre of town, which suited him beyond well enough, sure he'd have to pay back the difference to the local bank, but once he payed that off he'd never have to worry about house stability again!

He very much enjoyed the merit driven economy adventurers created.

As he finished his meal and pushed his plate away from him Zachary pocketed his card, removing a durry from a pocket he'd had sewn into his cloak and lit it with a wide grin on his face.

Spotting a familiar figure in the guild his smile grew, it would seem Eris was having some more down-time on the mortal plane, good for her.

Eris noticed him and waved, though her face flushed slightly.

Returning the gesture with a winning smile he gestured to the seat across from him, she seemed to get it and strode over to his corner table and sat across from him.

Eris was wearing a green shawl over her shoulders that was matched with a sky-blue scarf. and a single-strap bra across her chest, possible made of some low-grade leather if his eyes were right. Her fair, flat stomach was exposed to the elements, somewhat foolishly given their mutual line of work.

She wore dark blue short-shorts and thigh-high white stockings, along with dark brown leather boots. Sheathed on her right leg was a long knife of some kind.

"Before anything else is said, no one else can know who I am. Call me Chris." Eris-Chris said with a very quiet tone, as though she was shamed in some way.

Being the understanding chap he was, Zachary nodded, "Not a problem, Chrissy." The pale haired girl grew red in the face, like a startled puppy, "You're just a normal adventurer, and I've a slight habit of giving my favourite people nicknames."

"F-favourite?" Chris asked, oh heavens when did it get so warm?

"I've got you to thank for my being here, I've never been happier. I can't thank you enough. Consider me, converted." With a wink he took one of her hands and held it gently, his face softening, "Genuinely though, I can't thank you enough for the joy you've given me."

The guild was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.

Eyes were wide and mouths were agape.

One of the slack jawed men managed to get out, "H-him and Chris…?"

"I suppose they are quite cute together."

"Their colour pallets really compliment each-other!"

"I could see them having really cute babies!"

"...Damn shame."

Zachary took his hand away as though it had been burned, his entire felt like it was on fire, he'd completely forgotten about the rest of the guild and their nosey habits.

Damn thee heartfelt joy!

Chris was so red her face looked ready to combust, like every ounce of blood in her body was sitting in her cheeks.

Trying to get control of the situation Zachary weighed a few things up as he rose to his feet, anger or embarrassment?

People generally didn't stick their noses in like he'd just seen so he went with his gut, "Listen up!" He snapped, putting on his Angry Dad™ voice.

"I don't know how you lot were raised but generally if someone is giving someone else a heartfelt thanks, you don't just jump to bloody conclusions about their relationship status. Chris and I are friends, and if I hear any of your harassing her or myself about this exchange, I'll personally shove my foot so far up your arses, your teeth with be replaced with leather!"

The guild visibly leant back at his words, unused to such a disturbance to their usual merriment, "Do you understand!?"

No one said anything, for fear of setting off this power-keg once more.

"**I said do you understand!?**" Bellowed the Australian activating **Track Beasts** to augment his already - apparently - scary eyes, like an angry god looking down at his meagre followers.

A whirlpool of yeses and apologies rushed towards him, as the patrons either cleared out or returned to their business.

With that out of the way Zachary plopped down at his seat once more and took up his forgotten about smoke, re-lighting it with a quick zap of his lighter his dark red slit eyes turned to a calming-down Chris.

"So, what's up?" He asked, casually.

"Have I mentioned how terrifying you can be?" Chris asked quietly, looking up at him meekly.

Zachary grinned widely, almost wolfishly, as he turned off **Track Beasts**, returning his eyes to their usual green.

"It was either yell at them now, or never hear the end of rumours." Zachary said with a wave of his hand, "They're big kids, I'm sure they'll recover."

Chris nodded, finding the logic in his actions, though she shouldn't admit to herself or out loud that she was _scared_ of a Hero-Candidate, he was able to turn on the terror easier than most other people she'd met.

"So-I uh, wanted to ask you something. Not as the one who put you here but as a fellow adventurer." Chris asked quietly, getting a nod from Zachary, "Well, I have a lot of trouble forming parties because there are times when I have to go back to… work, and I can't exactly get a proper time for it. Since you know who I am, would you mind working with me when I'm not… working?" She asked lamely, feeling silly for even bothering.

What kind of desperate goddess asked one of her reincarnates for help like that?

"Oh yeah, totally." Zachary gave a thumbs up, getting a shocked look from the petite girl, "I'd be happy to help ya. Also works in my favour because I break the world so easily with Thori'dal I wanna fight stronger stuff, but some quests require you to have a party. So even if you aren't around to help all the time, you're always helping me get stronger."

Flexing his arm for exaggerated effect, Chris did notice that he was much better formed than when she'd initially met him, his body must have adapted to the new world exceptionally fast to already be seeing such results. Perhaps it was the new format they started after Aqua was… removed from duty?

Then what he said caught up with her, and it touched her heart a little, she had to admit. He may not have really meant it that way but it made her feel good to always be helping someone, with or without her presence.

"Plus, what kind of idiot turns down a goddess. Especially one who's as cute as a bunny." He reached across the table and tapped her nose, making her cover her face and blush.

Grinning like a hungry wolf he chuckled, "See, that's what I mean. Adorkable."

One thing he did note was how everyone managed to finally mind their P's and Q's, something must have distracted them.

GOOD!

"So, imma do some quick crafting, because I don't actually have a chest piece, and to do that I'll need a needle and thread, would you like to come for a shopping trip, Party Member Chrissy?" Zachary asked, getting another blush from her, clearly he was a new element to the goddess.

Or she was just unused to be spoken to in such a casual manner.

"I'm going to register myself as part of your team first, did you have a team name in mind?" Chris asked, fiddling with her scarf somewhat.

Zac drummed his fingers along his jawline in thought for a moment, "Malevolence. It was the name of my first and only guild when playing WoW, stuck with it for 12 years. Gonna carry that one with me for longer."

Chris grimaced slightly, "But it's so misleading of a name for adventurers…"

"Exactly, keeps people on their toes. Tatty bye, Chrissy!" He chimed as he left the guild with a slight jaunt in his step.

Chris grumbled slightly but accepted his words if it really was so important to him then she wouldn't stand in the way of it, especially since his party was for her own convenience as a Goddess.

**Later**

Having gone through several trial runs of his accrued leather stores, Zachary had made a dozen boots, a dozen gloves, six pairs of leather pants, 18 bracers and four chest pieces before moving from deer hide to crocolisk hide.

HIs first attempt ended in failure, but he wouldn't be deterred.

Deciding to take a hint from the pious folks books he uttered a quick prayer to Eris, however disingenuous it was he couldn't not believe in her, as he literally had her as semi-permanent company.

'_I ask that you guide my fingers, and my mind as I put together this piece._' He thought whilst sitting quietly in a contemplative moment, he grabbed the Greater Hide, and began work.

Time seemed to lose all meaning, before he knew it several hours had passed and he'd finished.

Looking at the piece it looked vaguely like dark purple armour, reminiscent of the Nightslayer armour of Warcraft, the armour was tight to his body but not suffocating, the gloves and boots seamlessly fit together and he'd somehow managed to procure a short black scarf to sit across the neck.

The chest of the armour bore a skull motif that matched and contrasted well with the black and purple of the armour.

He'd created simple shoulder-guards to replace his rattier ones, and used strips of hide to create a sort of leather sarong to hang around the back of his legs.

The greater crocolisk was easily forty metres long, he'd not get through that much leather in quite a while, but for a first attempt he was satisfied.

"I have no idea how this happened but go me." Zachary said with a snicker. "Thanks, Eris."

"You're welcome." Chris said, walking into his house, having had no problem tracking him down.

"Ah, so it worked then?" He asked curiously.

"Of course, a simple bit of help like that is well within the realm of my power." Chris said with a small smile, and I figured it could be a thank you gift, for helping me with the party problem. No one else wants a flakey thief."

Zachary waved her off, and continued to admire himself in the mirror, slipping Thori'dal onto his left wrist and sliding on the clawed fist weapon onto his right he struck an intimidating figure.

"It certainly… hugs you." Chris noticed, Zachary looked at her in the mirror and noticed her gaze firmly on his behind.

With a grin he spun and winked, "My my, forgive this mere mortal for tempting a goddess." He teased, getting a red face in response, he barked out a laugh and pat her shoulder, "Sorry-sorry, you remind me of a few friends that I had when I was alive. Just couldn't resist."

Chris gave him a side-long glance, "You are alive." She commented with purpose.

Zachary noticed her tone, "Ye-yeah, but I meant like… previously." He tried to explain.

The goddess nodded slowly, "That's fine, just thought you might have meant… something else."

"Like deluding myself into thinking I was still dead?" He said, getting a nod, with a shrug he dispelled that notion, "Just a poor choice of words, pay it no mind."

Chris was about to say more before she noticed the skies, "It's gone dark suddenly…"

Zachary noticed this and nodded, there was something… electric in the air.

"Something's definitely happened.

**Outside Axel**

Atop a headless horse road a dullahan, cradling his armoured head in one arm and manning the reigns with the other, he struck a truly terrifying figure.

"Which one of you asses has been trying to blow up my home for the past week!?" He screamed, sounding less like an undead boogeyman and very much like a pissed off house owner.

Or in his case, squatter. What with having taken over the castle and all.

Megumin tried to immediately rush out and take credit, if not for Kazuma slamming his hand on her mouth and pulling her back, "Listen up you idiot, if you go out there he'll drop you in a second!"

Biting his hand the girl snapped back, "I am Megumin! Of the Crimson Demon Clan, I will not shy away from a change to drop mad fire on this stupid dead guy."

"And if you try to fight him with your _one_ spell, and he doesn't become even more dead, _you_ will be dead!" Snapped Kazuma, in a rare moment of genuine severity. Why didn't these stupid problem children just listen to him?

Aqua took that moment to rush forward and cast a **Greater Turn Undead** releasing a massive burst of light directly at the dullahan, making the horse he rode in on disappear into nothingness and for him to scream in unparallelled pain.

"W-what? Why didn't it work?" Aqua exclaimed in terror.

"What are you talking about he screamed bloody murder, it totally worked." Kazuma said, still wrestling with the loli mage to prevent her from killing herself against the undead man.

Especially if he was strong enough to stand against Aqua's literally godly magic.

"You bastards! Who just throws light magic at someone like that!?" Rising up to his feet the dullahan grabbed his massive, blue-steel great sword and held it up at the crowd.

"I'm going to start cutting my way through you all to work out all this aggression." He swore with venom. His single red eye near bursting into unholy flames.

Suddenly he felt a flash of magic, and looked up, a floating, stylized arrow hung above his body, "What the hell is that?"

"**Arcane Shot!**"

Out of the crowd ran Zachary in all his dark purple glory, eyes flashed red with **Track Beasts** \- purely for the aesthetic he wouldn't lie about that - he fired the shot and it careened towards the undead, striking him directly in the chest, knocking him back several feet.

Conjuring a wooden whistle from thin air he blew into it, two flashes of nature magic occured at each side of the Hunter, Buck and Samson appeared.

The adventurers were caught between shock and awe.

"Pile on!" Someone screamed, drawing his sword and rushing forward, half a dozen warriors followed him whilst every magic user began firing off bolts of their prefered element.

"Attack!" Ordered Zachary, Buck stamped his feet and flashed red, buffing himself with **Call of the Wild**, increasing his physical defense.

Samson hissed and zipped forward like a bolt of purple teeth.

They quickly outpaced the adventurers that were charging the dullahan and Zac drew back another shot, this time firing off **Serpent Sting** quickly followed by another **Arcane Shot**.

The Dullahan grimaced as the shots burned at his necrotic flesh, but quickly righted himself and leapt into the fray, with a single stroke he decapitated the bold dear, and with a ferocious boot to the head and caved the skull of the crocolisk, with them out of the way he swung with all his might, dispatching the front-line of the adventurers whilst retaining a menacing silence.

It appeared he'd killed them all, but as the bodies fell it revealed Darkness shielding two other adventurers with her body, the sword biting deeply into her shoulder as her own blade had been cut in half trying to deflect it.

"Alright, fucking go time then, cunt." Zachary announced, drawing back his bow and gathering a mountain - for him - of mana.

"Hey!" He called, getting the undead's attention, it immediately recognised the magical signature of the one whom had damaged it and began to charge at him.

"If this doesn't kill you, you'll wish it did." Menacing red eyes met singular furious red eye.

"**Aimed Shot!**" The massive blue magical spear formed and fired in the blink of an eye, it shot right through the dullahan and carried the creature with it.

"**Arcane Shot-Arcane Shot-Arcane Shot!**" Screamed the Hunter, death of those around him in such a gruesome was new, and he wasn't handling it in the healthiest way.

Several purple bolts pierced the air, creating a devastatingly sharp whistling noise, the Dullahan's eye widened as the bolts rapidly caught up to it and struck the blue spear it had been impaled on.

"Oh dear…"

_**Booooom!**_

The sound was deafening, the aftershock knocked everyone on their backs and the light of the explosion blinded them.

Zachary stood as firm as he could, but lost that battle very quickly.

He felt either his heart pounding in his chest, or his card vibrating, possibly both.

The sheer adrenal rush he'd gotten from that short encounter made everything else pale in comparison.

Though very quickly the field was turned black as the grass died and hundreds of undead began to claw their way out of the dirt.

Apparently, he'd brought backup.

Zachary stood quickly running towards Darkness and the other survivors before the undead truly got out of their dirt naps, his stride was off-somewhat and he could still barely hear but he managed to rouse them, two swordsmen and Darkness.

Seeing they were in no better state he managed to spot Kazuma, Aqua and Megumin at the entrance of the city.

'_This has very quickly turned into a fucking feverish nightmare_.' Thought the Hunter with a dry gulp of his throat.

Grabbing his card from within his armour he pulled open the menu.

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 30**

**Hunter 15/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 20 Dexterity: 68**

**Constitution: 34 Intelligence: 32**

**Wisdom: 31 Luck: 60]**

'_Skills-skills-skills-skills-_' His mind moved faster than his fingers could but he quickly grabbed what he thought would get him out of this alive.

**Exhilaration - flush the hunter's system with natural magic, healing wounds and fully healing active pets.**

**Explosive Trap - A trap that upon being stepped on, explodes. Dealing fire damage to all enemies within a twenty metre radius.**

**Volley - create an arcane storm of arrows that rain down for 10 seconds, dealing X arcane damage to all enemies within a thirty metre radius.**

Firing up he released **Volley **around himself and his comrades, clearing a perfect circle around them, with a flick of his wrist he created the **Explosive Trap** and threw it as far as he could.

Concentrating for a moment he allowed the **Exhilaration** to heal his body, allowing his ears to heal and the shell-shock to wear off.

With his mind fully at his call once more he took up a position and knelt down, using Darkness' cast shadow he vanished completely.

Wave after wave of magical energy poured out from behind Darkness as Zachary fired off dozens of **Multi-Shots.**

It was a simple rotation of keeping **Volley** up and planting **Explosive Traps **whenever he could, and when those were ready he released a **Multi-Shot**.

The method worked well enough, he was rapidly running out of mana though, his body soaked in sweat from the terror-filled exhaustion but he wouldn't let himself down.

After what felt like an eternity, the tide changed.

A massive flare of light sent the undead directly towards him, Darkness and their mutual peers. Standing up his shoulders slackened at the betrayal, Aqua had used some spell to send them towards him?

Or perhaps not, as a massive red magical circle formed beneath him and his peers.

Darkness looked almost excited at the challenge, but Zachary was mortified.

"**EXPLOSION!**"

**End**

**Thanks for the good words boys, really know hot to treat a fella.**

**Keep 'em commin'.**

**Seriously though it did mean a lot to see such an incredible response, I know you boys may think me silly but knowing people like my stuff and seeing a fucking tide of people confirming it are very different things.**

**Appreciate it.**

**If you enjoyed, lemme know.**

**If not, what could have been better?**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	7. Chapter 7

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 33**

**Hunter 15/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 23 Dexterity: 71**

**Constitution: 35 Intelligence: 33**

**Wisdom: 32 Luck: 62]**

Zachary found himself in purgatory once more, sitting in the same chair, though this time he was garbed in his adventuring clothes, the leather did feel _exceptional_.

His mood though, was quite murderous.

Zac's body was still wracked with the phantom pains of having all his skin burnt off and turning to dust.

He leant forward and crossed his arms over his legs, trying to banish the thoughts from his head.

This time it was not Eris that appeared before him but instead what could only be described as an angel. A young man with bright blond hair and silvery-blue eyes, skin like porcelain and garbed in gorgeous, flowing robes.

"Salutations Hero-Candidate, it would seem your story came to a close much sooner than anticipated." The Angel said, not mockingly but not with any kind of sympathy either. "I am Dariel, I will be looking after you for this visit."

Dariel looked at a clipboard and read through it quickly, "Exploded. Not the most pleasant way to go. Though the deal for you remains the same, you may return to the World Below." Now he had some frame of reference to call the new world at least, "You may be reincarnated in your original world, or turn to heaven."

"I'd like to return to the World Below, please. I've not exactly made good on my whole 'being a hero' thing." Zachary admitted, darkly.

Dariel looked impassively at the young Hero-Candidate before him and nodded, "Very well, you may collect another gift if you so wish. Though doing so makes it so that if you die once more, that is it. And you will be sent on your way to the afterlife. This is a one-time deal, so it's up to you."

Zachary considered it, if he played his cards right, getting _another_ gift would turn the tables into his favour for a considerably long time. And yet if he did die again because of some reckless idiots, he'd have a true, final death.

Final death.

That gave him an idea.

"If that's the case, is there a way to go beyond human?" Zachary asked, getting a confused look from his attendant.

"There are several options, for example. The dullahan you fought was once an honourable knight who was wrongly executed, and his vengeance allowed him to return to the world of the living through sheer will. In your case, were you to an intense enough grudge, you would return as a Revenant, a creature driven by revenge to slay those that killed him." Dariel informed.

"Then there are several more, perhaps an Ekon Vampire - a Noble - they have many abilities at their disposal, though the sunlight wouldn't _kill _you, it would reduce you to ashes and bones before you would regenerate when in the shade. There are other varieties, of course but we shall press on." Dariel began listing various creatures, his charge listening attentively.

"Then on the opposite side of the coin would be a lycan of some kind, various beast forms. If it's survivability your looking for one could say that a Fae creature has more to it than others, what with their penchant for illusions and such."

"However if you wish to be recreated into another race entirely it will take time, time spent dead is not time well spent, as I'm sure you may know." Dariel informed, getting a confused look.

"Most do not remember how long they wander purgatory, how long did you think you were here initially, before Eris could see you? A few minutes, and hour? You wandered purgatory like a dreg for centuries, my good man. Centuries." Dariel revealed, making Zachary's pulse quicken.

"Do not speak." Dariel ordered, before the youth could do so, "You must only listen. For you will not forget your time, if you journey into it now. You will know the agony of the timeless realm, it will drive you to sheer madness."

"So If I may suggest, I recommend remaining a human in body, and attaining some kind of 'affliction'." Dariel made air quotes at his charge, getting a thoughtful look from the man, though it stormed with the backdrop of grief at the lost time.

"Is it possible to have an item that would bring about vampirism in my body, so that I may decide fully after thinking about it longer?" Zachary asked.

Dariel nodded, "Very possible, though I would ask you reveiw the rulings of Vampirism within the World Below before choosing such."

Zachary was gifted a book in his lap, opening it he found a few interesting things.

Sunlight would hurt, substantially so, when cast directly onto his flesh. That would mean he'd only need to cover up properly. He had resistance to Necrotic spells and Curses, could passively Compel those around him with his words, and a more active Compulsion upon using said ability.

His form, whilst technically dead would operate similar to when alive. Requiring nourishment at least twice a day in the form of raw meat or blood, from whatever source he could acquire it.

The downsides however, he would be effectively dead. Sleep would be lost to him, as would the ability to reproduce through physical means, the pleasures of the flesh would be stolen away, normal food would be like ash in his mouth, and running water would damage his flesh.

Upon a temporary death his body would turn to mist and seek refuge before reforming, but should that mist be struck with sunlight, it would spell his True Death.

He could create thralls by forcing his blood into them and performing the **Compulsion** ability with physical contact.

There was a lot to take in but all in all it seemed similar to a Greater Vampire from DnD 5e.

That was the base, the extras would come from whatever Archetype he chose.

Considering he'd played the game Vampyr not long before leaving the mortal coil the first time he went with Ekon, the Noble Vampire. Master's of Blood, Shadow and Beast.

"Very good, this vial contains the necessary… ingredients to make you what you have chosen. Drink at your disclosure." Dariel flicked his wrist and the book flashed away, replaced by an ornate, rectangular vial filled with a swirling, constantly moving, red liquid.

"Enjoy your second-second life, Hero-Candidate. We will not be meeting again." Without another word Zachary was dismissed from Limbo.

**Elsewhere**

Darkness endured the blast with gusto, her breath ragged and her cheeks flushed, aside from her damaged armour she was fine.

Her comrades, she could not speak for however.

The brave Archer, and Brother of Faith, that had stood by her stalwartly until the end, was naught but a smoking husk, all that remained was his mythical weapon, seared white hot by the heat of the explosion.

Her other companions, those she risked literal limb to save were taken from her as well, these feelings tore at the current of bliss she experienced for precious seconds and dragged her into a pit of despair.

Their bodies were burnt to dust, and left naught but ashen marks in the grass.

The undead however, were dealt with. Something to take away from the experience was the true toll that death could reap.

"Why are you being such a debbie downer? I can just cast Resurrection." Aqua said with a snap of her fingers, though she was being insufferably smug about it, Darkness couldn't help but feel the flush of joy in her breast.

Aqua went about doing just that, collecting the dead and resurrecting them with haste.

Darkness moved her Brother Believer towards those being brought back, Kazuma eyed his bow with envy, but the blonde Crusader merely caught his gaze and pinned him with a stern gaze, whilst admittedly a foolish ass of a man, Kazuma was not so low as to steal from a man on his way back from the afterlife.

Megumin looked at the destruction with a look of pride, the undead were gone and all because of _her!_ Aqua could handle picking up the ones who died because of her **Explosion** but to her, it only proved how truly powerful she was, that even someone capable of destroying a Dullahan so easily, was felled by her might!

Kazuma looked at the rising adventurers with a shake of his head, these idiots were lucky death was so easy to circumvent in their world, seriously who tries to charge a massive dead guy on a horse like that?! Idiots, that's who!

_Falling_

_I'm falling, and I can't grasp anything_

Zachary's body shuddered, drawing the eyes of those around his charred husk, suddenly he shot up screaming, the charred flesh falling off like a fine powder, revealing his completely unharmed form.

His green eyes darted around searching, wanting, needing.

Kazuma blinked in shock, he'd self-revived? Or did he just not take as much damage as they'd thought?

'_No way, he was definitely dead! I could smell the burnt skin_.' Kazuma self-affirmed, that made him question what was going on, maybe it was a Hero thing? If Kazuma was correct, both he and this Zachary were Hero-Candidates, though did that mean that death had no meaning to a hero? Would they just come back?

If so, amazing!

'_Or it could be another bullshit item the guy has, lucky bastard._' Kazuma thought, his envy rearing its head once more.

"Wha-... I'm back…" Zachary grasped his chest and fell back into the grass, his lungs greedily drawing in air, immediately tears poured down his face, the euphoria mixed with the shock and awe that came with being literally turned to burnt meat and returning to life making his poor heart a volatile cocktail.

"Oh, look at you. A little burnt and now you're crying?" Aqua drawled, kicking at his shoulder, "What kind of a man are you, eh?"

Zachary grasped her ankle and tossed the Goddess away from him, getting a squawk of shock.

He shot up like furious beast, "What kind of fucking move was that, huh!? Turning the undead towards us and then _**exploding**_ us like cattle!? What kind of sick joke do you think this is?"

Aqua reeled whilst Megumin wanted to, what with being out of mana and all she was completely incapable of more than talking.

"We were going to revive you, jeeze. Have some grattitude, because of us all those undead are gone!" Aqua snapped angrily.

Zachary stormed over to the goddess and booted her in the jaw, an angry _**crack**_ snapped through the wind, several winced and others visibly shrunk back from the enraged Hunter.

With a flick of his wrist he unfolded Thori'dal and aimed a shot directly at the downed Megumin, "You'll just come back right? What's the fucking big deal, right!? Because death is so easy, isn't it! You vicious little **cunt**!"

Megumin saw the unstable blue arrow formed directly between her eyes and visibly paled at the sight.

"Brother! You need not do this!" Darkness plead, pushing his arm down, "Though foolish and reckless, they did what they thought best! You have returned to the realm of the living, should this not be a joyus moment?"

Furious green eyes pierced Darkness where she stood, "They _killed_ us. All they had to do was work with the other mages, and the remaining fighters to work through the undead, I had us surrounded with magical arrows! They had to help us, _not kill us!_"

"Megumin is a young girl, brother." Darkness began, "A foolish child who is prone to rashness, and Aqua is a deluded woman who thinks herself a goddess, they were not equipped to deal with the situation rationally, that we emerged with any victory was fortune in and of itself!"

Zachary stared down at the little girl, who was shaking in her robes.

He flicked Thori'dal away and knelt down, staring at her eye to eye.

"If you ever, _ever._ Come near me again, I'll kill you. I'll find your fucking 'Demon Clan' and I'll kill them. But it'll be fine, because someone can just bring you back, right?" Zachary muttered with a vile hatred in his voice, it poisoned the very air around him.

Megumin's pupils dialted as her fear breached new heights.

Kazuma slugged the crouching Hunter and yelled, "Back off you spaz! You think just 'cus you took a hard shot you get to cause trouble?"

"Yes, I do." A rising foot slammed directly into Kazuma's unused family jewels, making several of the men around him cringe in sympathy.

Standing up Zachary cast one more glance at the little mage before delivering a savage knee to the nose, audibly breaking it.

Without sympathy he left them all standing at the gates, "Get it healed and get over it."

"Hardcore…" Muttered one of the revived men with sweat on his face.

"You can say that again." Said another.

"Hardcore."

"Don't be a smartass Jon."

Darkness looked at her part in sympathy, but greatly preferred them dazed and harmed, to dead and cold.

It pained her to see a soul in such conflict, but as he walked away the Hunter did not look back, a stern determination in his stride.

**End of Chapter**

**Felt the need for a little drama upon revive. If it's not to your taste I apologise but personally I'd not take death-and-rebirth well if someone else caused it.**

**I'm also cripplyingly afraid of death, so any way to extend my life my supernatural means in a setting like this, I'd take.**

**Again if you dislike this, vampirism won't exactly be taking centre stage. If I commit to the idea it'll be more ambient dialogue about food/drink changes, along with the occasional danger hickie.**

**Tell me your thoughts, I look forward to hearing them. The more the better.**

_**Raxychaz**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Enjoy this chapter lads, I enjoyed writing it.**

Brooding in his own house took about twenty minutes of his time before Zachary decided what to do with himself, he placed his V.o.V - vial of vampirism - in a lockbox under a floorboard in his house. It'd be safe there until he decided to fully commit to his idea of eternal existence.

He left the house to the local magic shop, he wanted to get some enchanting done on his armour and wanted to get a rough estimate on the price.

Walking down the street he was spotted and hailed by several people, all thanking him for his work against the dullahan, or his 'sacrifice'. Several others who were meandering back into the city from the fight were given similar thanks, it did his heart some good to see the people he was defending hale and healthy.

It also did his mood some good, hatred was a vile thing that poisoned the mind and the body, the less he held onto it the better, rationally he knew this of course. But in that moment, in the heat of the moment when he was brought into the world, screaming like a newborn with the phantom pains on his body he couldn't hold in his temper.

He'd have to spend time away from the guild, to avoid the trouble he'd potentially cause with the words he'd said, but hopefully he'd grow from this, and if all else failed and he let this moment ruin him, he'd only have himself to blame.

Not to say he didn't blame the stupidity of youth, but that's what it was, foolish children with too much power, playing at adventurer.

It was a similar idea to child soldiers in his Old World, the idea that putting a weapon in a child's hand and expecting them to follow sense and order with it.

It was idiocy frankly.

Sighing to himself Zachary brushed his hair behind his ear and allowed himself a few moments more of wallowing in himself.

If he was honest, for all his terror at the face of death, he did not place a particularly high value on his own.

When his mother was dying, the hardest part was that she was fading before his eyes, a slow, agonizing view on mortality. It scared him because death to the mortal mind was one without sense, where did they go? What happened to them? Did Heaven and Hell exist, or any other incarnation of the afterlife?

Knowing that it did, eased his heart somewhat, and knowing that he was a favoured soul(?) did much for his mood, but death to those around him was what scared him so much, being left alone, solitude was maddening, it hurt him to be separated from the family he'd found in his friends, and not feeling like or even having the time to make new ones.

The guild was filled with at least somewhat decent people, but he was… so far removed from all of them with his sensibilities and moral system, the fact that only he reacted poorly to his death spoke volumes of this.

He related to people with humour, stupid jokes, or interesting views. No one here could understand a stupid internet joke, or some dumb dead meme he still found funny, or the 'modern' observations he'd found amusing.

All he had was that he was considered competent by his new peers but none of them seemingly dared to approach him for some reason or another.

Aside from Darkness, and Chris.

But his relationship with Darkness was already one built on a joke he'd made to amuse himself, a lie about his faith. To Darkness, to believe in Eris was part of herself, whereas Zachary _knew_ Eris, personally.

Chris - Eris - looked at him with sad eyes, like she pitied him or something, he had no idea why she did, aside from his general personage, or the fact that she was a goddess and he was a mortal - potential immortal - with an entire life left behind.

"Speaking of." Zachary said aloud, a grumble in his voice, "Nice of her to tell me everyone I'd ever known and loved was dead, big fucking win that one."

"Bloody hell, what a shit of a situation." Lamented the youth, his eyes found the magic Shop.

**Wiz's Magic Shop**

How very inventive.

Stepping in he was greeted to a humble looking shop with stocked shelves of alchemical potions, books, and magical knick-knacks.

"Welcome!" A fair skinned, buxom woman said from behind the counter. She wore a dark purple robe with a matching mantle that was buttoned across her chest.

Her hair was a auburn-orange colour and her eyes were a bright golden yellow.

"G'day, I was wondering if you did enchantments by commission." Asked the youth, getting an owlish look from the woman for a moment before a wide smile lit up her face.

"Yes! I can do that-what where you looking for?" This was the first time someone came to her to acquire the goods instead of her acquiring random magical artefacts to try and sell.

"I was looking for elemental resistances, fire and cold if possible." Wiz nodded quickly, as he spoke more and more excited at a whole new avenue for business.

"That could be done very easily, though I'm not an expert by any means. I can give you **High-Resistance; Cold **and **Moderate-Resistance; Flame**. Are there any other enchantments you were looking for?" Wiz offered brightly, her mind spinning slightly at how stupid she felt for not just advertising herself as an enchantment store, they always sold well.

"If you can make it so I can move faster with my boots on and that my hood blocks out sunlight?" Zachary asked, figuring he'd at least try that.

Wiz thought for a moment, "I could use the fuse the **Haste** spell onto your boots, but you'd have to activate the magic, and recharge it on your own. As for the hood, perhaps a low level **Darkness** spell could work... "

Zachary smiled easily, the familiar muscle movement calming him down, he liked smiling. Smiling was easier and much more pleasant than scowling.

Wiz glittered with joy at his expression, her unintentional idea-giver, this young man was already a treasure in Wiz's eyes, and he may have turned her fortune for the better.

"How much would all of that set me back?" Zachary asked with a tilt of his head. "And also time-wise."

"The two elemental enchantments would only take a moment each, and with some basic components I can easily cast the spell… as for the other two? A few minutes to bind the spells to the pieces." Wiz did some mental math, giving herself a decent time-effort pay rate, "500,000 Eris."

Zachary thought about it, that was a single quests worth of work. Granted he didn't exactly know much about magic in the New World but that felt very cheap.

"Marvelous, well if you could cast the resistance onto my chest piece and pants, that'd be great." Zachary requested and Wiz put a seat down at the end of her counter, patting it with a smile for him to sit.

As Zachary sat Wiz ducked out the back to collect the required parts for her spells, Zachary had to admit, this woman was beyond thicc and seemed marvelously courteous.

He'd definitely be coming back if these enchantments worked out.

All in all, it took him about 30 or so minutes to get all of his business done and dusted, he was impressed with how it all worked, a few words and hand gestures here and there, and he was all ready to go, he decided to give an extra 5k Eris onto his bill, as a sign of good will really.

In the grand scheme it would probably get her a really nice dinner, which didn't cost a lot but it was more for the gesture than practicality.

"Have a good evening, Wiz. And thanks again. I'll be sure to send others here." With a slight bow of his head and a winning smile Zachary left the shop.

Wiz placed her hands on her heart, a near radiant smile on her face as her eyes watered with joy, transaction done perfectly, nothing went wrong.

"Ah… I never got his name…" Wiz said, blinking suddenly.

**The Next Day**

Zachary ate breakfast at home and donned his outfit, his hood in place leaving a void beneath it, nothing seemed to pierce the ominous darkness.

Before he left he looked at his card.

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 33**

**Hunter 18/ Rogue 3**

**Strength: 23 Dexterity: 71**

**Constitution: 35 Intelligence: 33**

**Wisdom: 32 Luck: 62]**

His current level was 33 but he had a combined class level of 21, giving him 12 levels to put somewhere.

An idea occurred to him so he opened the **Warlock** tree, there was the typical Warcraft style **Warlock** he'd expected and then there were several variants, a few DnD 5e styled choices, and one that looked like it belonged originally to the World Below.

Sure, he was on the 'Below' part but it needed a name.

Picking the Hexblade tree would allow him to use Thori'dal as the anchor for his warlock spells, basically meaning he could cast _into_ his arrows and use the bow itself as a medium for his spells.

Which would make it fucking busted, so of course he put 5 points into it, allowing him to not allow him to collect a pair of Evocations, which were passive boosts to his person or spells.

One he'd taken was **Talk With Animals** which allowed him to cast **Speak with Animals** without using any mana, whenever he wanted that was more just for the fun of being able to say hi to dogs.

The other was **Silent Image Expert** which would allow him to cast **Silent Image** at will, a copy of himself that could make no noise, smell, or take up and real physical space, but it would be awesome to fuck with people.

Finally he took **Improved Darkvision** which would grant him the ability to not only see in the dark, but see better than most naturally able to do so, but also see through magical darkness.

His 'Pact Boon' could be three things, the Chain, the Blade or the Tome. One would assume he'd take the Blade? But he decided to take Tome, for more spell utility.

**Warlock Spells**

**0 Lv. **

**Eldritch Blast - Two Beams of Force are shot at the target dealing X force damage.**

**Prestidigitation - An everything spell that can change the colour of something, clean or dirty it, snuff or light small flames, create faint sounds or smells.**

**Sacred Flame - Summon a burst of divine fire to deal X radiant damage.**

**Resistance - Grants resistance to Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison or Acid Damage for 30 minutes.**

**Acid Splash - creates a small bubble of acid that deals X acid damage to all targets within 3 metres.**

**1 Lv.**

**(Hexblade) Shield - Creates a defensive barrier around the caster for a few seconds.**

**(Hexblade) Wrathful Smite - Converts weapon damage to psychic, potentially fears target.**

**Comprehend Languages - Makes it so the caster understands a spoken language of their choice for X hours.**

**2 Lv.**

**(Hexblade) Blur - Makes the caster much harder to distinguish from their surroundings.**

**Mirror Image - Conjures illusionary copies of the caster to distract enemies.**

**Misty Step - Turns the caster to mist and teleports them anywhere within 30 metres.**

**3 Lv.**

**Fly - Allows the caster to fly.**

**Counterspell - Disrupts another caster's spell, negating it.**

That list in itself made him incredibly dangerous in almost any situation that called for it. Even the weak spells would still be shots from Thori'dal, making them stupidly powerful, so he didn't feel the need to take any truly devastating spells.

He put another 4 points into Rogue, making him even harder to pin down by getting the **Evasion** skill, an ability that increased his movement and flexibility.

The final 3 points when into Hunter, though he put them all into strengthening **Aimed Shot** because his nuke needed more nuke.

Finally his card looked thusly.

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 33**

**Hunter 21/ Rogue 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 30 Dexterity: 100**

**Constitution: 41 Intelligence: 45**

**Wisdom: 47 Luck: 80]**

Entering the guild, a hush came over it, none dared step near the seemingly-volatile Hunter as he stared them down for a moment before approaching the board, looking for a quest to chase.

Spotting a figure beside him he smiled down at Chris.

Eris had heard what had occurred and wanted to try to help her friend's mood, taking a few days off from Goddess duty to tend to him, when she spotted him walking into the guild with a dark hood on and piercing red eyes she was slightly concerned.

Zachary pulled down his hood revealing green eyes and a small smile, Chris blinked. "Are you using **Track Beasts** to scare people again?"

Zachary shook his head, "No, a new ability. **Devil Sight** I can see through normal and magical darkness, I suppose it makes sense they'd look different though… I figured I'd take a new quest, enchantments put a dent in my wallet."

"Ah, what kind did you get done?" Chris asked, happy to have a normal conversation after the things she'd heard.

"Cold and Fire resistance, along with **Haste** on my boots and **Darkness** in my hood." Chris could understand everything but the Darkness enchantment but decided not to comment.

She'd heard about his potential choice from her fellows, and was slightly apprehensive that her first Hero-Candidate was already ready to walk down the path of a damned soul, certainly he'd be an exception to this rule, but it did not set a good precedent.

"So, what today?" Chris asked,

"Today I want something strong, I need to remind the world I won't be murdered by children all the time." He said, his voice light but his eyes carried a potent bitterness.

"Here, a Chimera and a Manticore have been sighted in the area, battling with a Gryphon for territory. It's perfect." He said with a smirk, Chris felt a chill go up her spine at the look on his face.

"Is that really necessary? Fighting _three_ powerful monsters? Are you sure you're up to it?" She asked delicately, "I don't want you risking your life to prove yourself."

"To who?" Zachary asked, his eyes holding a challenge, "To the world? To them?" Zac gestured to the guild who were going about their own business, "I'm doing this for me, because who else should I give a shit about?"

Chris felt the loneliness in his heart, and the anger he'd been trying to push back down.

Her own heart went out to the young mortal Hero-Candidate, it was a flaw in their system that they would even allow for one to be placed into a world like the one they did, if they were to take someone it should be older souls, the young people of the Modern World, were too different to the World Below.

"I'm sorry." Chris said, though she wasn't exactly sure what she was apologising for.

"I'm not mad at you." Zachary said, though it partially sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that fact, "I just want to get to work, I've got a stupidly powerful artefact and I haven't been bullshitting my way to power."

"What do you mean?" Eris asked cautiously.

"I haven't been exploiting the world system and leveling up everything as much as I can. I need to _only_ do stupidly dangerous quests otherwise I'll never get enough power to do anything of note." Now it seemed like Chris wasn't in the conversation anymore, which concerned her.

Taking the quest with the three monsters and handing it to Luna he was greeted with a brightly smiling woman.

"Zachary may I just say you performed magnificently in defence of the town today, you ran off before the reward for the dullahan's death was given." Luna pulled a massive duffel bag out from under the desk and slapped it on the counter.

"The bounty, from the Central Guild Office in Castalia." She said, and unzipped the bag, revealing a sheathed shortsword.

It was a black and gold ornately crafted thing, the hilt of the blade consisted of a black-wrapped handle, a lion-head pommel and cross guard. Drawing the blade revealed a transparent blade that was vaguely blue in colour.

"Along with a Phantom Knife, from the King's armoury. He was very pleased to hear about your work." Luna praised with a beautiful smile.

Zachary eyed all the money before him with bewilderment, it was enough to buy the castle the Dullahan previously occupied.

Taking the Phantom Knife he strapped it to his belt and squeezed the duffel bag into his own Bag of Holding.

"Ah! We should drink in your honor!"

"Yeah! You're treat right?"

"All that money, don't worry we'll help you spend it!"

"I would rather do literally anything else." Zachary said aloud, cutting off the words of his peers, "If you slack arses actually did half the expected work of you, you'd all be landowners by now."

Luna sweatdropped at the harsh way he handled his fellows but she had to admit he made them taciturn with exceptional speed.

"What quest are you taking today?" She asked, and upon being handed the flier she paled substantially, "No rest for the wicked, yes?"

"Something like that." Zachary commented vaguely, Luna felt a slight chill down her spine when she looked him in the eye.

"Very well, I'll set Malevolence as the active holder. Good luck and return safely." Luna bid gently, Zachary placed his newly registered card back into his armour and nodded.

"I'll be heading out tomorrow, gonna go finish paying off my house before the Bank closes." Zachary said with a slight snicker at, enjoying the dirty looks he was sent.

"As my team-mate, you're more than welcome to join me for dinner, Chris. My shout." Eris smiled gently and nodded, enjoying the attention just a little, she'd allow that.

The groans of the guild at being denied an easy meal made his smile grow, pity the lazy for they are slaves to their own vice.

'_Tomorrow though, tomorrow I'll be taking everything to the next level._' Zachary thought as he left the guild, his mind firmly on the hidden vial in his room.

**End**

**Hope you all enjoyed, I'll not lie part of my love of stories like this is the stat-management, and I don't really know why.**

**Leave plenty of reviews letting me know your thoughts, I enjoy reading them as they fuel me. I have enjoyed the engagement rate and look forward to it's growth.**

**See you next time bois.**

_**Raxychaz**_


	9. Chapter 9

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 33**

**Hunter 21/ Rogue 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 30 Dexterity: 100**

**Constitution: 41 Intelligence: 45**

**Wisdom: 47 Luck: 80]**

Zachary used the reward money from the dullahan fight to finish paying off his house, and buy a horse. He didn't really like horses but it was the easiest way to get around, and with his ability to **Dismiss** **Pet** it would always be safe.

He called the mare Eileen, as she was black like his cat Eileen from the Old World, which in itself was a reference to Eileen the Crow from Bloodborne.

Eileen was a good girl, she was very even tempered and was happy to taxi him around to help him familiarise himself with riding her.

Aside from that he stashed most of the money, he invested in a few Spellbooks from Wiz's shop that apparently also said the spells aloud whenever the book was opened, he'd found a use for it, but using it as an actual focus would drive him slowly insane.

He had it open whilst he was asleep so that it would slowly ingrain his spells into his head, also helped that it was relatively quiet, as his body still had tinnitus, so silence was a nightmare for him.

After that he took another day to buy more things to look after his house when away, he considered leaving a quest in the guild, but didn't trust any of those dispsticks not to swallow their own tongue, let alone look after his home.

Zachary sat in his home, the sun was up and it was the middle of the day, he sat in a comfortable chair at his circular dinner table, sitting on it was _the_ lockbox.

Zachary stood, unlocked the box and drew the swirling vial from within.

In the back of his head, he swore he could hear a church organ playing.

Unscrewing the cap he swallowed the vitae in one swig.

As it moved into his stomach he crumpled against the floor, his breath coming out in thick clouds of steam, like each breath robbed more heat from his body, a knocking at the door alerted him.

"Zachary, are you at home?" Darkness? He thought she was out of town with her party! 

He tried to croak out a simple, 'busy' but all that came out was a swathe of blood, his eyes widened as agony wracked his body, Darkness must've heard because she all but kicked down his door.

"Eris preserve! Poison!" Darkness screamed, "Someone help! Someone! My friend has been poisoned!"

Zachary tried to get her attention to shut her up but all he could manage was an agonized scream, Darkness rushed to his side and cradled him against her unarmoured - oddly enough - frame.

"No-no-no, please- please just hold a moment, help is coming I promise you!" She pleaded, though he rapidly cooled in her arms, his blonde curls matted with sweat as blood congealed on his chin.

Then, all of a sudden he went still. Darkness gaped at the rapid power of the poison at work, his skin was deathly pale, and he was stone cold.

Cold as the grave.

Lalatina crumpled in on herself somewhat, as she held him close. Stroking his head, "It will all be better soon, Aqua can revive you."

She sat for mere moments before the beating feet of those whom had heard her call rushed to her aid, several of her fellows, Aqua, even Chris.

They all saw the cold, dead body of Zachary in a tearful Darkness' arms.

"Pffft, not even a day and this idiot gets himself killed again." Aqua mumbled, getting an elbow from Kazuma who shot her a dangerous look.

"Firstly, it's been more than a day you idiot, secondly the guy had a pretty reasonable reaction. Just accept someone else doesn't put up with shit from you, you useless goddess and revive him." Kazuma had done a light amount of soul searching and couldn't exactly find it in him to hold a grudge for what his peer had done.

Sure, Megumin was fucking terrified but Kazuma was pretty sure most of what was said was in the heat of the moment.

Aqua moved over to cast her spells, grumbling all the while.

"Let's see what's the deal…" Her eyes flashed as she cast **Identify Poison** and frowned at the information she got back, "He isn't poisoned…"

"But he was coughing up blood, and it's the only thing that could do this much damage outside of a Curse." Lalatina said quietly, looking confused, Kazuma gestured the other's out as it was being dealt with.

This time Aqua cast **Identify** on its own, and she was given a laundry list of information, as a goddess she was able to super-empower her spells and might have accidentally seen his entire life.

What an odd sense of humour he had.

But all the embarrassing moments, gold!

Meeting with Eris was standard form.

'_Let's… see here…_' Aqua's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, "Dariel you idiot!" Hissed the Goddess with a sneer skyward.

"What?" Kazuma asked, closing the door behind him.

"This idiot got another item when he died and used it to make himself a stupid vampire!" Aqua said with a hiss, "Let him go now!" She ordered, Darkness looked at her party members in confusion.

"Darkness do as she says." Kazuma ordered sternly, the Crusader gently set down her friend he looked to be asleep in all honesty but Kazuma wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen when he woke up.

"He drank a… potion that would turn him into an undead leech, what kind of a moron _chooses_ that!?" The Goddess of Water demanded, "And what kind of idiot gives it to him!"

This time she chose to cast her words up, as though her peers could hear her.

The noise of a shuddering breath drew their eyes, bloodshot eyes snapped open as Zachary rose chest first off the ground, his limbs seemingly slack behind him before he stood up.

'_Kinda cool though, looks like he's levitating_.' Kazuma had to admit, he wasn't really worried he had Aqua and her **Turn** **Undead** erased pretty much anything it was pointed at.

Zachary sagged slightly in his stance and seemed to be looking _through_ the humans and goddess.

HIs eyes were unfocused and his veins were incredibly pronounced, Kazuma took a reflexive step back as his eyes locked onto the new-born vampire.

'_I'm so… tired. I need some water and then I'll go to sleep._' Zachary thought, he always had water at his side when he was sleeping, this was no different.

A scent hit his nose though, and the dryness in his throat became so much more intense, just like when he'd woken up from surgery and felt like he'd not drank anything in months.

His eyes could barely focus, and he could barely hear, but three powerful drum beats echoed in his ears, the world was dark but there were three lights, three shining lights calling out to him.

Stumbling somewhat he managed forward, only to be caught in soft, warm arms, he felt comfort, such comfort being so close to this light, his knees buckled but he didn't mind, the light held him close, and the gentle thrum of the drum calmed him down.

He took in a breath through his nose, the smell was potent, but so _so comforting_. He felt like he could just slip away into a wonderful dream.

'_I've never been so comfortable… it's like being in a warm bed in winter._' A gentle smile tugged at his lips, he pulled his arms up and wrapped them around whoever held him.

He knew it was a person, probably a woman what with the pillows and all but his mind couldn't really process much in that moment so he allowed himself to drift.

"So whadda we do?" Kazuma asked, looking to Aqua as Darkness cradled the other man in her arms, he had to admit he was a little jealous of the Australian but at the same time he knew just how kinky Darkness was, and he wasn't about that.

"Put him in an urn." Aqua suggested with a dark look on her face, a grin pulling at her lips.

"Okay, not helpful. Darkness how is he?"

"He seems to be… sedated?" Lalatina, asked more than answered, "You say he has become a creature of the night?"

"He's definitely not human, I can tell you that." Aqua informed, her arms at her side, ready to blast him into dust a moment's notice.

"Maybe he's… hungry?" Kazuma asked, more confused than anything, "Like, he's just outta energy or something."

"What do these creatures eat?" Darkness asked, getting a slightly queasy look from the two others, "What? You'll have to forgive my ignorance most of my lessons were of managing estates and martial training, I am not well learned in the matter of beasts."

"Blood." Kazuma answered with a sigh, though from the look on her face he'd just made Darkness' day, "Don't go gett-"

"Too late." Aqua muttered as the girl cupped the vampires face close to hers, his unblinking, glazed over gaze being met with heavy breathing and flushed cheeks.

"You mean to say he must… suckle from the flesh of his victims, holding them closely whilst draining them slowly, _oh so slowly_-his searching hands raking across my unprotected body as his fiendish desires reach insurmountable odds!" At that point Darkness was lost.

Kazuma sighed and ran a hand down his face, "I guess we'll have to get some… raw meat or something? To wake him up?" Kazuma looked out onto the street and saw that it begining to get dark.

A hand tapped his shoulder and he saw Aqua pointing, to what?

Zachary was very much away, and very much necking on a squealing blonde.

Darkness was in rapture, whilst the ravenous beast seemed to have come out to play he was surprisingly gentle with her, not that she minded.

She was light headed as he pulled away, viciously sharp canine teeth slick with blood, but otherwise felt fine, his previously dull eyes were once again shimmering with life, and his pallid skin gained a slight bit of colour back.

His slightly forked tongue slipped from his mouth and Darkness felt her heart thundering in her chest as it slid across the blood-_her blood_\- on his lips.

"Ahm… much better." He said, his voice rough and low, but powerful.

He looked at Darkness and leaned in again, licking the stray blood from her two new neck-wounds, "Thank you, for being a light in the dark."

Frankly she had no idea what he was talking about but it felt sexy, so she accepted it.

"You are-ah, very welcome." Lalatina said with a slight cough.

"Alright, corpse-boy, back up." Aqua ordered, shouldering past the vampire and healing Darkness, restoring her strength, after a quick **Identify** she could say without question the girl was fine.

Zachary stood up and looked outside, it was dark. A smile tugged on his lips, he placed a hand against his chest, there was no sound, no beat. He moved closer to a window and opened his mouth to see it's reflection.

A wide grin of sharp teeth looked back at him, and a forked tongue lolled about in his mouth, "Marvelous." He said simply, grinning widely.

He turned to look at the others, "I'm going to go and kill a few magical creatures, I'll see you all in a few days."

"Wait-what?" Kazuma asked, caught off guard, "You're just going to ride off after pulling this-! Out of your ass?"

"Very much so, what I do is my business." Zachary said, his grin faded.

"Became our business when you _drank from my party member._" Kazuma said with a snap.

"Oh please-I don't mind it at all… do it again." Darkness said, standing up and looking up at the man with an almost pleading look on her face.

"Look, I appreciate that you guys, mostly Lalatina being concerned about me. But I don't exactly owe you my time, nor an explanation for the things I do. If I'm going to get enough power to eventually destroy the Devil King. So I am gonna go kill a bunch of really dangerous creatures with my stupidly powerful weapon and then I'm going to move on with my life."

Then he laughed, "Or I suppose, unlife."

Zachary's shadow twitched slightly as he laughed, making chills race down Aqua's and Kazuma's spine.

Grabbing his cloak with the shaded hood Zachary stepped outside and whistled, immediately summoning Elieen, "Later nerds, I'm gonna go eat so magic lion-monsters!"

With a snap of the reigns Eileen took off leaving a cloud of dust behind her and her rider.

"What an ass." Kazuma said with a sweatdrop.

Suddenly all the problem children were thrown out of the house by some invisible force, and the door immediately locked with a flash of red light.

"He has invading wards on his house, but didn't have blood on hand for after his change, what a weird idiot." Aqua said with a snap, from under Kazuma and Darkness.

_**End.**_

_**Thoughts, lay 'em on me bois.**_

_**You want more chapters, you feed my ego with reviews.**_

_**Love you all.**_

_**Big smoochies.**_

**Raxychaz!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Quick aside about the potential of there being a pairing or not, I can't really comment on it, as I'm sort of just… tapping at my keyboard for an hour or so every now and again for a bit of fun.**

**I haven't really planned out much but the fact that people want to see it makes me want to keep making it, which is pretty much why my page is littered with dead stories, people weren't super interested.**

**It's a little odd for me to think about a pairing, considering most of the cast are either **_**children**_** or barely adults, Megumin and Yunyun are 14 and 13 at the beginning - according to the wiki - and Darkness is 18. **

**I'm 23.**

**So if there is a pairing, it won't be from the main cast. Just figured I'd put that out there.**

**Hope you enjoy this chapter.**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 33**

**Hunter 21/ Rogue 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 150 Dexterity: 200**

**Constitution: 140 Intelligence: 45**

**Wisdom: 47 Luck: 80]**

**Species Change Bonus - **

**Str + Dex + Con +**

**+Darkvision**

**+Resistance to Necrotic and Curse**

**+Vulnerability to Radiant and Bless**

**Command - Allows user to issue a short command when making eye contact.**

**Enthrall - Feed a normal creature your blood to take control of their minds.**

The mountain's overlooking Axel were _pretty _far, but Eileen was a strong lass and could gallop for a while, all he had to do with give a cheeky **Mend Pet** here and there and her energy would restore quickly.

The ride was fast, but only because of how he managed to once again break a system in the world with his class features, the moon still creeping up into the sky but the cloud cover was minimal.

The heavy beat of wings shot overhead as a massive brown and white creature flew past him, ducking for a moment Zachary looked up to see a Gryphon swoop in and lift a deer into the air, Eileen would have freak were she a normal horse, but with her mind reprogrammed by his control she was completely calm.

His **Devil Sight** along with his now natural **Darkvision **he could track the creature easily enough but with a thought he **Hunter's Mark**'d it to keep a trail, he snapped Eileen's reigns again and chased down the beast, passing through the moonlit fields and planes of the outer Axel area.

Very quickly though it became apparent that the only option would be on foot, as the Gryphon had nested _on top_ of the short, jagged mountain range.

**Dismiss**ing Eileen Zachary loosened himself up before jumping up, his body turning in a fine black mist before re materialising on an outcropped set of rocks, he kept jumping until he appeared near the nook the Gryphon had claimed.

It was a female, if the chicks were anything to judge by. He knelt down, immediately fading into the shadows and flicked open his bow, Thori'dal shimmered as it's arrow formed.

Counting down in his head he aimed at the mother, going for a clean, quick kill.

"**Aimed Shot**." He whispered as the massive blue energy-spear formed, to an outsider it looked like a few blue lights had gathered randomly in the night, not worth the notice.

His upgraded shot formed three prongs, like a trident, and flew with a sonic boom as it left his bow, the ground quaked as the blue streak shot through the darkness, the Gryphon screamed bloody murder as the 'arrow' buried into it's skull.

"**Multi-Shot**." A wave of energy shot out from Thori'dal as the chicks were caught in it and all but erased as it washed over them, leaving naught but an empty nest with smoking bones, the mother tried to screech and summon her strength but with half of her brain being impaled she found it hard.

Zachary drew back a final shot and fired off an **Arcane Shot** into his **Aimed Shot** this time creating a localised explosion instead of a mini-nuke, possible due to the amount of **Arcane** energy used to trigger it.

The gryphon was missing the left side of its head but otherwise resisted most of the superficial damage, Zachary approached and pulled out his card.

**Gryphon Slain x1**

**Gryphon Hatchlings x8**

Good to know, he stashed the card and looked over the dead beast, it was remarkably easy, truth be told, as a Gryphon had no natural way to see through invisibility, and with his undead status **Track Life** spells wouldn't work on him.

He smiled to himself and went to work skinning the beast, leaving only a meaty skeleton, it would be the perfect bait for the Manticore and/or Hyppogrif it was warring with.

**Gryphon Hide x1**

**Gryphon Pinion x241**

**Gryphon Claws x 6**

Zachary looked around the nest and found nothing of real interest, though a glint in the nest did pique his curiosity, rifling through the debris of the nest he was treated to what could only be a prince's crown, a slim circlet with a ruby set in the centre, the circlet looked to be formed of golden vines, and a lion head housed the ruby.

Somewhat ironic that it would end up with a gryphon, so he pocketed it and figured it'd either be worth something, or was enchanted.

He set down four **Explosive Trap**s under the meaty carcass of the gryphon and jumped up above the nesting nook and hunkered down, his eyes flashed red as his senses expanded, **Track Beast** may not work perfectly against things of such nature, but it would help somewhat.

Hours ticked by and the moon slowly began to rise into the air, the crisp air barely an issue as his eyes constantly tracked back and forth.

It became apparent that he'd not be able to really make progress just sitting in the nest so he drew power from Thori'dal and cast **Fly **upon his person, with another great jump he took off into the air, magical wings forming behind him as he took to the air, his eyes taking in all around him.

His sharp ears managed to catch the noise of something to his south so he quickly soared off in that direction, though just as he did he was struck from the side by several long spines, agony flashed through him as he dipped and nearly crashed onto the ground.

His body once more turned to mist and he reappeared on the ground, beneath the tree-line, the spikes falling to the ground with no body to nestle in anymore.

Zachary had to roll quickly to avoid a pair of trees crashing on top of him, as he did he was immediatelly swatted by something massive into another rush of vertigo, flipping to right himself he snapped his gaze up and there was not one, but _three_ manticores lurking around him.

One remained in the air, looking down at him with a sneer on its man-face, it's lionel body looking unnaturally comfortable with massive bat wings, and a scropion tale.

Each of them had different fur colour, perhaps they were of different batches?

The airborne one was a rust colour, the tree-crashed was a dull grey, and the swatter was golden blond.

Each of them were covered in spikes and their mouths had more teeth than was reasonable, three sets behind one another, burning red eyes filled with malevolence and acidic venom dripping visibly from their tails.

"A tricky little vampire, seeking to flit about the sky, how quaint." The Grey spoke with a sneer, it's voice was like sandpaper to Zachary's ears.

"Oh marvelous, I don't often get to eat _moving_ dead flesh." The Blond purred, snickering sickly.

The Rust's only response was to whip it's tail and send another needle-spray down unto the vampire, Zachary cast a quicky **Misty Step** and shot directly up into the air, as his body reformed, Thori'dal flared to life.

Too many options shot through his head and his minor hesitation at being taken three to one cost him, the Rust shot forth and spat a ball of fire directly towards the aloft vampire.

Cursing Zachary disappeared into the mist once more, appearing higher still and shot down with an **Arcane Shot** directly into the creatures back, with another gesture three copies of himself appeared randomly about the impromptu arena, each holding their bows drawn, with a simple utterance of **Silent Image**.

Rust fell to the ground and groaned, though lashed out and banished a copy, "A tricky creature, indeed."

Zachary shot down like a bomb and landed directly atop the creatures back, being careful to land feet first and with a mighty heave he slashed the wings to ribbons with his clawed arm-brace, the creature screeched and it's kin immediately moved to aid.

Grey summoned several skeletons from the void itself, whilst Blond seemingly vanished into a wisp of sand.

Zachary followed it's action into a **Misty Step** and used the **Fly **spell to reorient himself and fire off an **Arcane Shot** directly into the face of the Grey, making it howl, the Skeletons were quick to chase but he leapt into the air and spun into a corkscrew back down, landing with a might blow into the skull of the Rust with Thori'dal in it's folded state.

The heavy bludgeoning blow dazed Rust as it teetered for a moment, though before Zachary could capitalise Blond appeared and snapped at his arm, the vampire flinched and lashed out with his foot, kicking it square in the nose, it hissed loudly and shot a blast of fire directly into the vampire's face.

Zachary felt it blister at his skin but the enchantments on his armour held firm and instead of retreating he pushed forward, punching forward with the folded Thori'dal he fired off an **Eldritch Blast** directly into the monstrosities mouth, it was thrown back by the white rays of force energy and when it landed it began to violently vomit on the ground.

Rust lashed out with its claws and managed to scrape the Hunter's back before he turned into black smoke and appeared behind the Manticore, Zachary's dagger flashed off his belt and into his hand.

"I'm not sorry about this." With a sharp whistle Zachary summoned up a **Wrathful Smite** on his dagger, and activated **Backstab** though instead of aiming at a back he aimed squarely for the creatures genitals.

Rust was struck with a potent psychic attack as fear flooded it's being, it did not notice the fountain of blood pouring from it's now void sack, Rust began to run around like a mad beast, attempting to get as far away from the vampire as it could.

Zachary turned into **Mist** to avoid the Skeletons and landed into a crouch, turning into nothingness and flashed out his bow, firing off an **Aimed Shot** directly at Blond, who was still retching, the shot struck true and slid right through the creatures skull, into its intestines, it's body twitching wildly as it's brain tried to register it's death.

Zachary was struck with a massive bolt of black energy, sending him tumbling and rolling, though in doing so he managed to kick out and flip into the air, Thori'dal flaring to life as he drew the shot.

Grey's eyes widened as another **Arcane Shot** flew towards him with the speed of a jet, followed quickly but a wave of energy from the **Multi-Shot** disintegrating his minions.

Grey saw naught but blue as it's life ended.

Zachary landed from what the possibly the coolest slow-mo-bullet-time shot he'd ever get and took a quick moment to look around.

Grey was dead as a doornail, Rust was bleeding out against a tree and Blond was soggy meat.

The Skeletons fell to nothingness as their creator died, and so he took a moment to throw his arms up and cheer loudly.

"I'm FUCKING AWESOME!" He laughed like a madman, he felt no strain, but his dead heart felt like it was surging with adrenaline, it was beyond a rush.

As his smile softened and the heady concoction of joy and bloodlust began to subside, he heard a faint noise in the distance that sounded like a dull thud.

Pulling out his card on a whim he laughed again, slapping his forehead and he howled with joy.

**Hippogriff Slain x1**

**End **

**Hope you enjoyed it. **

**Lemme know what you thought, big love from papa Zacco.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	11. Chapter 11

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 35 **

**Hunter 21/ Rogue 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 153 Dexterity: 204**

**Constitution: 142 Intelligence: 49**

**Wisdom: 48 Luck: 85]**

Zachary had skinned, declawed and defanged every Manticore before returning to the Gryphon nest to see that his assumption was correct, the Hippogriff must've smelt the flesh and came for a midnight snack, it had triggered the **Explosive Trap**s and taken a one-way trip to the Bad Place.

He chuckled to himself and knelt down to try out a bit of cheeky magical creature.

Draining humans would increase the potency of his vampiric abilities by taking the collective experiences of a life and using that to empower himself, technically speaking it should be the same for a monster of strength.

The taste was a warm, sweet kind. Like a hot chocolate, quite comforting actually. He'd have to start trying different creatures, though if all of them tasted like hot choccy he'd be happy.

The burnt out body was drained dry and he stood up and pat his stomach, a full belly indeed! Grinning he whiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slid his bladed glove back on, without anything else to keep him he shot off down the mountain, resummoned Eileen and rode back to Axel.

He could fly, sure. But he didn't have a horse for no reason.

"Blood hell, Eil's." Zachary said as the black mare trotted towards the road happily, "I'll say this, I may need to invest in some big hardbodies to stick between myself and the monsters, my weapon may be stupidly powerful, but I'm still a delicate boy."

The mare snorted and whinnied at him, he laughed loudly and pat her neck gently, "Oh come on, I'm a beautiful flower, a carnivorous, bloodsucking flower that also shoots magic out of its' bow."

The mare came to a stop as she reached the road and scuffed the ground, Zachary quirked a brow and slid off, "What's up girl?"

"Smart horse." A voice in the dark said, Zachary turned and was a little galled to see Chris standing in the centre of the road suddenly.

"Chris, what're you doing out here, in the middle of the night?" Zachary asked, something set his nerves and he couldn't really place it.

"I was handed an interesting missive by my subordinate, Dariel. What mad thought made you think becoming what you have was a good idea?!" She was flabbergasted, to put it mildly.

"Aside from the laundry list of advantages, and the only downsides being no sleep, eating and drinking from either living things or dead monsters? I'm ridiculously strong, physically, I just _punched_ a manticore and broke it's jaw, I can _flip in the air_ and dematerialise at will!" Zachary flashed a wide smile and Chris stared at those sharp canines in the moonlight.

"Sure, I can't have kids anymore, I can't enjoy food like I used to but-Chris you've gotta understand that death for me, it was… fucking horrifying, and there was _nothing_ I could do to stop it, both times!" Zachary stepped forward and threw his hands up.

"The first time, I was stabbed in the neck by some fuckhead at a bar, trying to protect a friend, and the second time I was blown up by a trigger-happy loli! I can't do that again, I certainly can't just take my lumps and kick the bucket, going to heaven before my time! I've got too much to do! This Devil King, if he's the one churning out monsters then he's gotta be dealt with, I _promised_ I would do that, in exchange for this amazing new life _you_ gave me!" A slight hysteria began to flood his chest.

"I-I'm alone, almost all the time, even when I'm with other people I'm still the weirdest thing in the room, no one here can understand anything I say unless I go all ye olde bullshit. I'm isolated from everything around me, so what now I'm a little bit odder than before, I'm not gonna suddenly go into a blood frenzy and purge the human race, I'm here to help and the best way to do that is to have every advantage I can!" He tried to make her understand, tried to make her see.

"You gave up your humanity for it! You became a monster, the very thing you've decided to cull!" Chris-Eris said with a snap, "I understand where you're coming from and I'm _sorry!_"

"Sorry doesn't cut it!" He roared, "Dariel told me-told me I was wandering around like a husk for _centuries!_ All of those I love are dead! My friends, my family, there's nothing connecting me to anything anymore, all I've got is this stupidly gamefied world and the people in it!"

"Because you haven't tried to connect with people!" Eris shot back not standing for it, "You cut yourself off and don't try to work with the others here, why do you think I sent you to Axel in the first place? To learn the world and to try to connect with new people."

He held up his hand and presented Thori'dal to her, "I don't need help, I've got this. I'm fast enough to avoid too much damage now." His shoulders sagged and he all but aged before her.

Eris watched as he collected himself, her eyes gaining a sad edge when he spoke again, "I thought that maybe I could work with the others, but from the outset they were standoffish with me, Kazuma is from the same world as me but we're from such startlingly different cultures that we can't really relate. I got my magic item and he got… Aqua. I can see the envy in his eyes whenever I'm around, the others are… god this sounds so vain, they're all jealous of what I can do and it's literally just because I thought it through before coming here."

"Look, I understand the whole 'maintain humanity' ideal. But I'm still me, _literally_ the only thing that has changed about me as a person, is my dietary habits." Zachary looked down at the goddess him and frowned.

"I'm still me."

Eris looked him in the eyes, unflinching, even with the pallid skin and sharp teeth, his eyes remained the same green. He'd not sullied an innocent, so he was technically correct.

"I don't like undead." She began, "No divine being really does, it's hard-coded into us."

"Which makes sense." Zachary admitted, nodding as he crossed his arms.

"They're too different from those we watch over and those around us, they feel… wrong to us." She tried to explain, "You'll start to feel it soon, if not already. Most undead are either drawn to attack or repelled from the divine."

Zachary looked her up and down and quirked a brow, "I mean, when I first woke up, Aqua was there and I didn't seem too bothered. I'm not exactly feeling and negative mojo from you either."

Chris crossed her arms and cocked a brow, appearing much more human than previously, "Interesting…" She admitted, "Perhaps it's our familiarity?"

"Pre-transformation exposure therapy?" Zachary posited, Chris nodded, "Would make sense, given that from what I've seen in the Old World there's so many different interpretations but the big mix is whether religious symbols truly work or not."

"Most do not, unless they carry a legitimate divine blessing." Chris informed, getting an understanding nod.

"You've calmed, substantially." Admitted the Goddess getting a shrug from the man.

"Managed to get it out of my system, catharsis is a powerful thing. Getting all that negativity out of you… makes life much better." The Hunter said with a shrug.

"You humans-" Chris blinked for a moment and a look of vindication came across her friend's face, "are interesting creatures, very interesting." She said, a fond note in her voice.

Zachary grinned, placing his hand on her head and ruffling her head, "And you little goddess, are one of the good ones."

"I am _literally_ made of 'good'." Chris said with a dry look on her face.

"Glad we agree."

**Axel**

In full hooded regalia, allowing no light to touch him, Zachary entered the guild, he cut an intimidating figure but it wasn't his appearance that set peoples nerves, it was their instincts, they felt like cornered animals near a massive predator.

The Hunter approached the desk and tapped it with his knuckles, within a moment another attendant with rose red hair and silver-blue eyes appeared, she wore a uniform similar to Luna though was a slight more conservative.

"Welcome to the Guild, my name is Felicia how can I help you today, Mr. Waller?" She asked sweetly.

"Just turning in a quest, how's the morning treating you?" He asked, fishing out his card and sliding it across the desk to her.

"Quite well actually, the cooks outdid themselves with this mornings breakfast, would you like a table?" Felicia even went with the slight tilt to her head, Zachary smiled this girl would be a menace in retail with those eyes and that smile.

Especially in his old town, where most of the population were old people. Old women would think she was a darling, and the old men would wanna get all up in her business.

Much like his father actually.

'_Ah Dad, always on my mind when perversion comes around._' He thought fondly, with a small grin on his face, at the private joke.

"Oh, the triple threat!" Felicia said, pulling him from his thoughts, "Th-three Manticores!?"

"They were tough customers, but not that bad." Zachary admitted with a shrug, "Took out the gryphon first and while I was dealing with the three stooges the hippogriff must've found the body I'd trapped, bloody thing went up in smoke."

Felicia sweat dropped at the laugh that came from the shadowy hood, but the crinkling of those glowing red eyes robbed it of all menace.

"Well, I'll fetch your reward. The nobles that set this up also sent over a special reward for whoever managed to collect." Felicia disappeared into a back room after a quick bow.

Zachary took his card back and looked around the guild, wherever he cast his gaze they avoided it, like he was sizing them all up.

It brought a frown to his face but he figured life didn't change over night. And these lot always held him at arm's length.

He looked at his card and opened the leveling menu.

**Alter-Classes Available; **

**Rogue-Ninja**

**Hunter-Beast Master/Marksman/Survivalist**

**Fighter-Warrior**

How interesting.

'_Probably because of the stat bumps I got from changing…_' Zachary thought, absently rubbing his right index and thumb against one another.

From the quick descriptions they gave, Ninja was just a _better_ version of rogue with more maneuverability and emphasis on… jutsu.

Oh thank god, down the same vein as Final Fantasy 14, he wasn't ready to jump around yelling about the power of friendship and believing in it.

Beastmaster would allow him to tame exotic beasts like primeval monsters, like dinosaurs, and monsters like gryphons, wyverns and hippogriffs.

'_Little late but that could be super useful in the future._' He thought amusedly, though it appeared that the wyverns they were talking about were lions with bat wings and scorpion tails, not the two legged dragons.

Warcraft strikes again, it would seem.

Marksman made it so he wouldn't have to rely on pets and would get a percentile increase to all ranged attacks, it would unlock more shots and make it so that his signature moves like **Arcane **and **Aimed Shot** would do considerably more damage.

Survivalist was actually a more melee focused take on the Hunter, it would convert his various shots into melee variants and would call for him using either a large weapon like a great axe, greatsword or spear.

There was a lot to consider, Beastmaster had utility, Markman was raw damage, and Survivalist was a complete swap of his approach.

Though given his artefact he'd not be choosing the melee approach.

Zachary figured he'd upgrade Rogue for the moment, and think more of the other's later.

**Rogue changed to Ninja**

**Mudra's Unlocked**

**Jin - Hand gesture activates the 'Man' effect.**

**Chi - Hand gesture activates the 'Earth' effect.**

**Ten - Hand gesture activates the 'Heaven' effect.**

**Fuma Shuriken - creates a massive shuriken that can be thrown dealing X ranged damage to the target, requires Ten/Chi/Jin Mudra to activate.**

**Katon - The user produces a blast of fire that deals X damage to target and any within 10 metres, requires Chi+Ten to activate.**

**Raiton - The user strikes the target with X lightning damage, high critical rate. Requires Ten+Chi to activate.**

That would be… interesting to practice. He'd feel silly but more variety never hurt.

"Here you go, Mr. Waller. 10,000,000 eris and a pair of enchanted boots." He presented the boots to him first, they were plate, the noble must have thought the idea a little funny because they were styled to resemble lions paws.

The base has faux claws on each toe, and raised sections with lining and golden filigree to resemble a mane around the shin guard, the snarling face over each shin. The metal that wasn't gold was a matte white colour, all together they looked pretty impressive.

"Lord Baliis thought that the lion motif would suit, given that two of three of those monsters were lionel in some way or another." Felicia explained, "If you click the heels together it summons a spectral lion that will serve until it's dismissed or destroyed."

"That's pretty incredible." Zachary said aloud, blinking owlisly. The boots he wore at that moment were more akin to tabi than actual boots. Essentially really tough, leather socks.

He slipped them on, they were a little loose but within a moment they snuggled up and fit perfectly.

"Enchanted armour typically can reshape and size to whomever is wearing it." Felicia informed with another smile at his slightly wide-eyed look.

"Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Waller. I look forward to seeing you in the future." Zachary took the hefty bag of money and stashed it in his bag of holding, leaving the guild with a small smile on his shrouded face.

Magic items were so cool.

**End**

**Hope you enjoyed it, lemme know what you think.**

**No real action this chapter, just some human moments. Bit of rambling venting.**

**Trying to get into my own head in a different situation is an interesting experience.**

**Hopefully it doesn't come across as ya boi doin' a big whine.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	12. Chapter 12

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 35 **

**Hunter 23/ Ninja 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 153 Dexterity: 204**

**Constitution: 142 Intelligence: 49**

**Wisdom: 48 Luck: 85]**

**New Skills**

**Life-Hunt - Detects nearby living objects, they are trackable through walls and certain terrain, up to 100 metres.**

**Blood Claws - Uses a litre of stored blood to convert hands into deadly claws that can rend flesh, damage caused by Blood Claws is harder to heal, applying a 20% heal reduction to the target.**

**Murder of Crows - Summons a murder of magical crows that peck at the target unfalteringly, if a crow is destroyed another merely takes its place, dealing X over 10 seconds.**

Zachary comfortably reclined on a couch in his home, reading a book.

Something he never did in the old world, but the internet didn't exist and he may as well use his new eternal life for something useful.

The curtains were drawn so no light could get in, and were heavy enough that none could peak through.

His long blond curls were draped over the back of the red leather couch, dark green eyes bouncing along the words as a few little sprites hopped around the first floor ceiling, apparently fey creatures were drawn to undead, so he bought some potted flowers and they started living in the things.

The sprites were simple little light-based life-forms that originated from the Feywild, where all creatures that fell under the classification of 'fey' resided.

Funnily enough, dullahans were considered closer to fey than undead.

They had floated into his house the previous evening, after some light-show at the local graveyard he felt compelled to avoid.

He was using his guild card as a bookmark, which was probably a terrible idea but it was only for the moment, his eyes kept drifting back to it however, he couldn't decide what path to follow.

If he went with Marksman he was completely self-sufficient, but if he went with Beastmaster he'd have some actual company.

Hopefully company that wouldn't be nuked by the first thing he fought.

The pajama clad vampire sighed and sank into the couch dramatically, the sprites fluttered around him, sensing his dismay.

"Thank you darlings." He lamented, the sprites couldn't make enough noise for him to perceive but their lights did change to a warm yellow as they drifted around him.

A knocking at his door made them pause and flash towards their flowers, Zachary sighed again and cast **Darkness** inside, his **Devil Sight** triggering giving him a malevolent red gaze, "Come in!"

The door creaked open, the sunlight outside showing it was Kazuma and Darkness, "Jeeze, how do you see in-" Kazuma's eyes found Zachary's and his throat tightened.

"It's a passive." Zachary informed the NEET, getting a sigh of relief, "It's good that you're here. I was getting lonely."

"My dear friend, you can call on us at any time!" Darkness said with gusto, striding into the dark of the abode, Kazuma trailing somewhat and the door shut behind him, sealing magically.

The magical **Darkness** lifted and the room, whilst still being lowly lit, was actually visible. Two glowing flowers off to the side illuminated it somewhat, and it seemed that there were bottles of light around the room.

"The bottles are from Wiz, they're enchanted to hold **Dancing** **Lights**, I can see in the dark but I realise others can't." Zachary informed, gesturing around himself.

"Pull up a seat." He offered, Kazuma looked for one only for a duo of plush stools too _walk towards him_, one stiffened and sat next to his leg and the other behind Darkness.

"That's not creepy at all." The Japanese boy said with a shiver.

"I think it's quite charming." Darkness gushed, "Magic is a wonderous thing."

"Got the idea off Runescape. Did you ever play?" Zachary asked curiously, to Kazuma.

"Heard about it, some western rpg. Kinda old." Kazuma said with a shrug.

"I used to play it at the local library with one of my older sisters's friends. Can't remember his name for the life of me." Zachary admitted, eyes not really focusing on anything. "This was back in the day where if you just closed down the window it wouldn't save your progress, so I made a new account each time. Thinking they were being deleted."

"Wow." Kazuma said, snorting. "Kinda stupid."

Zachary grinned and nodded, "Oh _very_. I remember the first few months I played World of Warcraft on my potato laptop that it was _so choppy!_ And then my eldest brother comes along and tells me to turn the settings down from Ultra, and I was just like 'Settings?'"

Zachary laughed so loudly and so suddenly that it actually startled Darkness but Kazuma was snickering along all the same, so it must have been something she just didn't see the humour in.

"How old were you?" Kazuma had to ask.

"I think I was 11 at the time." Zac admitted, his face seemingly set into a grin.

Kazuma snorted again, "No excuse then! You should have known better!"

"Fuck you!" Snapped the Hunter, though he was all smiles, "It was my first proper pc game, everything else was on PS2 or Xbox. I didn't know any better!"

"The internet existed!" Kazuma shot back with a victorious, smug look on his face.

"And I had dial-up for most of my young life, only got a decent internet connection around the same time I started playing wow. I didn't know what useful things existed." Zachary waved the younger male away, though his snickering didn't cease.

"You know, for some serious, dangerous guy in this world. You seem like kind of a dumbass!" Kazuma felt like he was interacting with a human instead of some weird quest-oriented robot.

"I was very stupid as a kid, there's no denying that." Zachary admitted, "Though I challenge you to have nothing you think is stupidly simple now that stumped you as a kid."

Kazuma opened his mouth before closing it, and thinking.

"You probably didn't know how babies were made or something, it's usually like that for degenerates like yourself." Zachary guessed, looking the younger male up and down with a smirk.

Kazuma hissed, "Eat a dick I so did! I was 10 when I was told about that stuff!"

"And did you ever put that knowledge into practice?" Zachary goaded, looking pleased with himself.

Kazuma hesisted just long enough for the Australian to pounce.

"HA! Virgin!" He shouted, laughing uproariously.

"Fuck you!" Kazuma said, standing up.

Zachary kept laughing, so hard in fact that he fell off his couch and copped a book to the head for his trouble.

"Ha, karma's a bitch!" The Japenese man felt vindicated.

"She ain't your though." The blond sniped back, still laughing.

Kazuma kicked the older man in the leg, making him wince in between his laughs.

Zachary held his shin and hissed, trying to put a serious face on whilst wrangling his chuckles, "You shithead!"

"Takes one to know one!" The brown haired boy shot back without missing a beat.

"What are you five!?" Zachary asked incredulously, laughing again.

"Stop laughing at me you ass!"

"NEVER!"

Darkness began laughing as well, Kazuma looked to her with betrayal on his face, "you as well, Darkness?"

"For-give me Kazuma." She said with a snicker, "It is just refreshing to see you on the receiving end of your own medicine."

The Japenese boy huffed, kicking the vampire again and getting another hiss.

"Ah~." Zachary breathed out contently with a smile stretching across his face, "I _really_ needed a good laugh."

"It feels like an age since I've been able to just… be, contently." Continued the man with a look of consideration, "Probably has been in some way or another, nonlinear time progression of the afterlife and all that."

"Mhm." Kazuma hummed, crossing his arms.

Zachary, from the floor, looked up to Kazuma with a smile on his face, "You know the male virginity is meaningless right? It's just an… idea, I guess you could say. Women have hymens that break upon sex, and even those can break through strenuous activity. Virginity in itself is just some bullshit invented in ye olde times to make women more appealing to potential husbands."

Kazuma blinked, "That's uh… unexpectedly informative."

"Yeah, so don't feel bad for dying as a virgin, go out and seek puss." Zachary ordered with a gesture to the door, Kazuma just kicked him again.

**Axel - Magic Shop**

Zachary waited until the afternoon before leaving the house, Darkness and Kazuma returned to their party to organise a new quest, something involving sprites of some kind, he tentatively offered his assistance if they needed it, thought it would be a one time thing.

He honestly just wanted some company.

He entered the shop and removed his hood, the shop itself lacked windows for some reason or another, but it didn't bother him too much.

His green eyes drifted about before landing on a rather confused looking Wiz.

Now that he looked at her he noticed it, that little… off sensation he felt the other night, it was coming from her.

His eyes flashed blue as **Life-Hunt** activated, and he was able to distinguish something quite quickly.

"So I guess I'm not the only dead thing in town then." He said with a smile on his face, Wiz looked slightly panicked.

"Don't freak out, given that your running a shop that I frequent, I've got no problem with it. It was just playing with the new nose." He tapped his nose and his eyes returned to their normal colour, "Vampire."

"Lich." She admitted quietly, Zachary blinked owlishly, "I use magic to maintain my appearance, top avoid decaying."

"Huh, learn something new everyday." He said with a new smile, "What made you want to set up in Axel though, a newbie town surely can't bring in much magical item revenue."

Wiz considered her words for a moment before the door magically locked, "I was a General in the Demon King's army, I finally managed to leave not long ago and decided to open this shop."

Enough detail to inform him of her motives, but not enough to slake his curiosity.

"Very nice." Zachary said with a thumbs up, making her blink owlishly. "I made a deal with… a celestial being, and got vampire juice."

"Ah… vampire juice?" She asked, a little concern in her tone.

Zachary snickered and grinned, "Mind out of the gutter, darling."

Wiz immediately apologised but Zachary laughed instead, "A potion, that turned me into what I am now. Vampire juice."

"How… strange." She admitted, "I've fought vampires before and they don't look… very human."

"What do you mean?" In place of answering his question directly she fished out a book and opened it, it appeared to be some kind of bestiary.

Holding up the book revealed some vaguely humanoid creature with a circular mouth and massive red eyes with tentacles in place of hair, six long, spider-like legs and a flabby texture to its skin.

Zachary all but physically recoiled, "Jesus and the Saints, what atrocity is that!?"

Wiz looked concerned, "Are you okay?" She asked quickly, "I'm sorry to have distressed you!"

The last thing she wanted was her idea-boy to feel alienated.

"I've seen some fucked up stuff in my time, but nothing like that!" He closed the book and slammed it on the counter, as though that alone would destroy the taboo images.

"Are you… sure you're a vampire?" She asked, the other's she'd seen were also completely feral and were more akin to pests than… whatever this man before her was.

"A different kind entirely unrelated to those… tragedies given flesh." He said, visibly repulsed. "Fuck I'm glad I don't sleep anymore or I'd have nightmares for weeks."

Wiz looked incredibly distressed and began compulsively apologising only for the vampire to place a hand on her head and pat it, "Hush now little darling, Dad is fine."

The woman looked confused by this, but before she could question it he shook his head, "Nevermind that. A joke that wouldn't make sense in this land."

She nodded slowly and he took his hand away, "Is there something I can help you with, we got a new shipment of items in!"

Zachary grinned widely and nodded, "I'd love to see them!"

**Axel - Evening, Magic Shop**

Hours later Zachary and Wiz were standing before a massive haul of enchanted items, he rubbed the bridge of his nose as though to stave off a headache whilst Wiz looked quite miserable.

"Good gracious, darling." He said with a sigh, "You really _must_ get better at choosing what to buy."

"I'm sorry…" She said miserably.

"I'd say it wasn't your fault if this didn't seem entirely premeditated." Zachary scolded with a frown, "Boots that make the user invisible but also scream whenever they're walked on? A greatsword that doesn't cut and instead trims peoples nails on impact? A cape that is drawn to gold but also has a chain around the neck, it is only good for hanging greedy people."

Wiz looked like she was about to burst into tears.

"Now, what you _can_ do is disenchant the greatsword, and put the enchantment on something more manageable like a small wand, that has use for nobles and stuff. The greed-killer could be put on a divining rod, so it doesn't murder people, and the boots… put them in a cold cellar and don't open it." Zachary advised, Wiz actually wrote those ideas down with a bright smile on her face, though the tears did fall.

"Thank you!" She sniffled.

Zachary put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a half-hug, "No problem but please, sweetheart. Just put a little more thought into _who_ you're buying these from."

"Anything else?" She asked, composing herself somewhat.

"I'd suggest in some basic enchanted equipment for monster killing. Swords that burn when drawn, arrows of ice, lightning javelins. Stuff like that. So long as they're basic level stuff people around here could afford them, I mean I'm pretty much the only one who seems to be able to save money and I'm a compulsive spender."

Once more Wiz jotted down those ideas in a cute little bat note-pad, Zachary smiled to himself at the look on her face.

'_Adorable._' He thought with a grin on his lips, though he hid it when she looked at him again, "Regardless, I'll take the Lyonel Cuirass from you. May as well try and accrue more lion-based armour for the hell of it."

"The Cuirass… are you sure? I assumed most of what you wore was leather." Wiz said, a little confused.

"I can wear heavier stuff now that I've got enough strength, also helps that I'm basically undetectable so I may as well actually protect myself. Also more lions to summon." Wiz nodded and guided him back over to a dummy that was wearing the armour.

It was the same lamelar styled, white plate of his boots, though it was layered and scaled like mail, the right shoulder was a faux lion headed with hollow eyes and an open mouth, the left shoulder was a simple guard that would go to the middle of the bicep.

The price, whilst outrageous was affordable, it was basically an 'epic quest' worth of gold.

He took a heavy bag of gold from his bag and handed it to Wiz before dragging the armour into his bag of holding.

Wiz glimmered with joy as she held the weighty bag and thank her friend for his purchase, Zachary left the store with a smile on his face and pulled his hood back up, night-time or not he felt more comfortable with it on.

**End**

**If you enjoyed it, lemme know.**

**Za Warudo; I feel that a self insert that walks into a room and every loves intolerably cringey, though it probably also says something about myself in hindsight.**

**Tamagat; Blood potency scales off the power of the creature itself, so if something were super powerful, like a Dragon or Kraken, it'd empower a blood-drinker substantially. I think if one were to drink from a goddess one would just burst into flames, all that divinity probably wouldn't sit well.**

**Hope you boys have a good one until the next time.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	13. Chapter 13

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 35 **

**Beastmaster Hunter 23/ Ninja 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 153 Dexterity: 204**

**Constitution: 142 Intelligence: 49**

**Wisdom: 48 Luck: 85]**

Zachary had chosen to become a Beastmaster. And his first act of this was to tame a few utility pets.

He'd gotten a crow that was harassing one of the local boys, and named it Jeremy. The idea behind Jeremy was that he could use one crow to direct an entire murder, along with his spell **Murder of Crows** it would make a terrifying sight if nothing else.

Jeremy had grown rapidly in size upon being tamed and filled with Zac's magical energies, the crow was easily up to his thigh in terms of height, but still had the goofy charm that most birds do, it was marvelously fun to see a giant black bird hopping around chasing crickets.

Next was a timber wolf that could be found just outside the city lurking in packs within the forests, though if his passing interest in wild doggos was worth anything he was pretty sure actual timber wolves lived in cold climates.

This big bad wolf was named Rumple, because reasons. Rumple was also given a massive boost in terms of physical potency, he was easily as big as Eileen, the horse took exception to this.

All wolves had an ability that boosted the attack of all allies within earshot, and also gained an extra 50% critical strike chance when in melee range with an ally.

So he tamed a second wolf, this one was Swiss, also because reasons. Swiss was a dull grey where Rumple was brown, and matched its kin inch to inch. The two massive wolves made for exceptional cuddle-buds.

Finally was a giant toad, he called him LaCroix, after a character he didn't much like in Vampire the Masquerade. LaCroix was a big blue son a bitch with a dopey look on his face but the giant frog ability to all but completely nullify bludgeoning damage. He also self-healed every few minutes, and could expel a massive glob of acidic slime that tore through armour.

LaCroix was already quite large so Zachary's magic didn't give him much more physical size, though it did make the creature substantially harder to kill.

Along with taming these creatures he unlocked two new abilities.

**Kill Command - Command your pet(s) to strike a targets weak point, dealing critical damage and sundering armour(15%), stacking up 3 times.**

**Bestial Wrath - Tap into the beast within, both you and your companion(s) gain increased health regeneration, attack speed, and attack power. **

It nearly crushed him with the nostalgia waves he'd gotten upon seeing those abilities, he'd played a Hunter since he first picked up World of Warcraft, and he could still clearly remember the day he'd gotten **Bestial Wrath** on his Orc, Wolfin.

'_My giddy aunt those were the days._' He thought fondly of his youth, though almost with lament. He loved the Old World, but he had so much _more_ in the New World, he had wealth, power, prestige, all off his own merit.

Though he lacked the support network of friends he once had, and the unconditional love of his mother and father, he felt he could survive in the New World until a point he could find those things once more.

Life was dim for now, but it would get brighter as he carried on.

Rumple huffed beneath him, the brown beast flopping onto the ground whilst his Beastmaster sat on his back.

Swiss sat down and looked over at his master, the large borker blinked slowly as the dead thing it served looked at it with big, happy eyes.

"Who's a beautiful boy?" Zachary asked.

Swiss gave a short, content bark.

"Yes, that's right. You are a good boy."

Swiss nudged his hand, earning a chin rub.

"So, Rumple… ya gonna move?" The wolf he was riding huffed again but stood up.

He was taking the boys out for a walk before he went back to the guild and apparently they were already grumpy and tired, so he smiled and dismissed them.

Producing Eileen from the aether he left back to 'home base'.

**Axel**

Kazuma had decided not to cash in his 'one mission with Zac' coupon and had left with his group to collect ice sprites, Zac didn't mind really.

He strode into the guild with a slightly bored look on his face, he liked it in Axel and for all the talk of it being a 'beginner' town, it had _many_ exceptionally difficult quests to perform, and they were always fun.

Eyes cast over the bulletin board he rubbed his shadowed chin beneath his hood as he thought to himself, '_A kill quest? Maybe an escort quest? Hmmm…_'

Whispering broke out behind him and he turned to see a young man with an overall noble countenance walking into the guild.

"Is that Alexei Banres Walter, what's he doing here?" Someone asked their peer.

"No idea, must need the guild for something?"

"Must be important if he came, he's not the sort to stir up trouble."

Alexei was a young man with short brown hair that parted in the middle, he had dark purple eyes that seemed to be brimming with good will to all. He wore a dark green doublet with golden buttons and white sleeves, a pair of black trousers that complimented his black leather boots, golden buckles and all.

He had a pair of riding gloves tucked into his belt and sported a longsword on his hip.

He approached the counter and smiled at Luna, "Good morning, Ms. Luna. How do you fare?"

Luna gave him an equal smile, "I am very well, sir. How can the guild help you this morning?"

Alexei produced a sealed letter from his shirt, his face looking very grave suddenly, "I have a request for the guild, though it is not the usual quest."

Zachary was fortunate that he had such sharp hearing, because everyone else was trying to strain themselves to eavesdrop whereas he just stood at the board.

Luna looked slightly worried but accepted the letter, not opening in it in sight of anyone else and reading the summary.

She shot her gaze back up to the noble who nodded solemnly, "I require your best, Ms. Luna. For this is an incredibly important task."

"For something like this you'd need a…" Luna trailed off and formulated the 'team' in her head, a small smile came to her face.

"I know exactly who can help you, my lord." Alexei looked a little surprised but smiled, Luna pointed past him and gestured to a tall, hooded man.

Alexei gazed at the man, the stranger was certainly tall, and wore armour that was a mixture of plate, chain and leather, with a large golden gauntlet of some kind on his left arm, and a string of daggers on his hip.

He certainly didn't _seem_ to be an incredibly sneaky rogue, but if Ms. Luna had faith, he would too.

Alexei approached the man and offered his hand, "Salutations friend, I am Alexei Banres Walter, and I have been told you can help me with a task."

The man turned and Alexei was given sight to a pair of predatory red eyes that pierced the veil of darkness the hood cast, "Pleasure."

They clasped hands and Alexei could feel the strength of his grip, a fine shake indeed!

"Zachary Alexander Waller. Considering the whispering did you want to go somewhere private to talk about this?" Alexei was impressed with the professionalism shown immediately, though given the triplet of names perhaps this man was also a noble?

'_That would make sense, it is rare to have even a last name, and yet this man has a name worthy of noble station._' He'd have to ask later.

"Yes, of course. Please come with me." Alexei gestured to the door and Zachary followed at his side.

**Zachary's House**

Deciding the best play to talk would be where no-one else could even see them inside, Zac offered his house.

Alexei entered and looked around, it was incredibly dark - even with the magical lights - but was also quite homely, a soft couch next to a small table for one to recline in peace, a few sturdy oaken chairs surrounding a circular dining table next to the window, so that each guest would be equally addressed.

A wise plan indeed.

Alexei was well practiced in the methods of entertaining guests, but he'd not thought to use a circular table, admittedly.

Zachary had the curtains drawn and removed his hood, showing his face to Alexei finally.

The noble had to admit, he wasn't expecting the red eyed, mysterious man to look so… normal?

'_Honestly I expected an elf._' Alexei thought to himself with a small amount of humour.

"Would you like something before we begin? Tea or something?" Asked the Hunter.

"I would adore some tea if you would be so kind, Mr. Waller." Zachary nodded and assembled some quickly, using a bit of magic to add a little extra _pz-zaz_ to it. He grabbed the jar of biscuits he had in the cupboard as well and placed it at the table with the tea.

"The biscuits are an approximation to a family recipe, my mother used to make them. But this country doesn't seem to have the usual nuts, so had to use others." Really, a world without almonds!?

Still had chocolate, so it wasn't a total wash.

'_I can't have any, but at least other people can enjoy 'em.'_ He thought miserably, though there were ton's more skills in the Vampire tree, so he could probably find something sooner or later.

Alexei took a bite and smiled brightly, "Magnificent!"

Zachary smiled and finally Alexei noticed his teeth, "Just try not to have too many, or you'll get a stomach ache from all the sugar."

Alexei nodded quietly, suddenly subdued but his eyes were steel, "Well, I suppose I must get to the point."

Zachary crossed one leg over the other and nodded, "In your own time."

Alexei considered how best to say it, but decided truth was best. "For this quest I require a slight context, I am the adopted son of the local governor. Though my father was once a decent man he has quickly grown vile and corrupt over the last decade or so. I fought him on many occasions over his choices for the people but I've never really made any progress."

The Noble Son chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before continuing, "Recently my father has gotten much worse, he's putting into motion more aggressive taxes to fund his… secret activities."

"And those are? Gotta be something expensive if he's not able to pay for it out of pocket." Zac didn't want to admit he was a little weary of where this was going.

"He's begun… collecting children from each nation, he says he wishes to spread the noble name and generosity further, and so far he has acquired three… 'sisters' for me." Alexei swallowed thickly, his hands suddenly clammy.

"I've no idea what madness my father has taken to, but I know it must end. So to that end… I wish for you to remove him from power. I need you to break into our manor and find all the proof you can as to his illicit dealings. I will bring it before the judges and have him thrown out of the town."

"I honestly expected this to end in murder, I'll not lie." Zachary said with a shrug, "A little information theft is easily done, you'll never even know I was there."

The nobleman sweated slightly, "Regardless of what he's done to these children, kidnapping and such, I don't wish my father dead just… gone."

Zac nodded, already planning where he was going to bury the man. "Not a problem, if all else fails I'll ride him somewhere myself."

"You do me a great favour, Mr. Waller. I cannot thank you enough, the city itself will be _much_ better without him."

Zac waved him off, "Consider it my civic duty, so… as mercenary as it sounds, what is on offer for this?"

"Well, it is fortunate that Ms. Luna pointed me your way. With your record at the guild, and actions in defeating the undead horde that attacked our town I could offer your a minor lordship, establish your family name in the records of Axel." Alexei suggested, Zachary mulled over the idea.

"If that's not acceptable I can give you gold. I am aware that some would prefer to stay away from the world of nobility. When my father is gone I can do great good for the city, and I would wish to have allies at my side that I can count on, however." The Noble Son said with a slight pleading in his tone.

Zachary smiled and nodded, "I'll get rid of your old man, don't worry about that. So long as you prove yourself to be a good sort, I'll back you. So consider me Lord Waller."

Alexei visibly sagged in relief, "Thank you so much, I'd ask when you can begin but I don't want to know. The less I know about your movements the easier it will be to avoid implication."

"Like I said, Lord Walter. You'll never see me coming." The vampire promised with a smile, Alexei felt a slight chill but nodded, taking a biscuit for the road before leaving the dark, but homely abode of the Hunter.

Zachary cast a glance over at the two sprites, living in the flowers on his desk, "Well boys, we got a noble to depose."

"Dunno how the kid thinks he's gonna get to be in charge, if the old man is a governor. It's not passed on by blood… he's probably got something else set up."

With a shrug the young man wandered up stairs to grab a few things before he set out in the evening.

**End**

**If you liked it, lemme know.**

**Thanks to everyone who writes out the reviews, make me a big happy boy.**

**Sorry about that slight wait on this, been doing a lot of social things.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Alright friends, I wanna put in some team mates, because dialogue is way easier to write I will not lie.**

**So, to that end. We have potential crossover characters from other shows, anime or otherwise.**

**The limit is 2, as I really feel like any more would make it a crowd and fuck up any kind of dynamic. So, two extra characters from whatever, think about who before you suggest them and if I know their characters well enough I'll put them in.**

**There's no real limit on them, aside from my own knowledge so think broadly.**

**I look forward to your suggestions.**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 35 **

**Beastmaster Hunter 23/ Ninja 7/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 153 Dexterity: 204**

**Constitution: 142 Intelligence: 49**

**Wisdom: 48 Luck: 85]**

The Barnes Walter manor was as lavish as it was gaudy. A stone path cutting through a winding garden filled to the brim with different types of brightly coloured flowers, the magic was thick in the air, which made sense considering how - even in the dark of night - bright all of the flowers were.

The moon hung low and the lights of the estate were still on, the lavish meal that the noble governor was having was heavy with honey and salts, the man - whilst no doubt a pig if his own son wanted him gone - had similar tastes in food to himself.

Zachary hunkered down into a crouch, sitting in the bushes as he waited for the moon to rise higher into the sky, '_I've just gotta keep low and I'll be undetectable, but I've also gotta get the evidence I need to find out where he's keeping the kids, and what his real intentions are._'

Gnawing on his sharp nail the vampire frowned in thought, '_I can't just take him out back and shoot him like a dog, I'll need to find a place to put him if worse comes to worse… _'

For a moment he stopped dead in his tracks, he wasn't a lone wolf anymore, he was a Beastmaster. And he had the perfect mobile garbage disposal, '_LaCroix, my good boy._'

With a sinister grin he took a leap from the gardens to the roof, a jump of several metres directly up, but he made it nonetheless, landing upon the roof with the grace of a feather.

Looking across the roof he was impressed that even the roof had a garden, and by providence, an entrance into the top floor.

He sidled up to the door and looked it over, it was locked.

With a fluid motion he fished a dagger from his belt and stabbed the lock.

**Lockpick - Success!**

What an actual meme.

He snickered quietly into his shoulder, praying to muffle the noise of his own mirth before slinking onto the steps and shutting it quietly behind him.

The steps were made of worked stone and quickly led into a small hallway that was attached to a much more grandiose hallway that in turn lead to various rooms, blessedly each were marked in one way or another.

'_I dunno if I'm just lucky they speak and write english, or if Eris messed with my brain, but I'm grateful_.' Zachary thought with a small smile on his face, remaining in a lowered position with his arms out to balance.

'_Just a dude walking around like a night elf, no problems here._' He bit his lip to avoid chuckling as he passed Alexei's room and went directly towards his father's study.

The sound of scribbling could be heard, Zachary took a slight breath and activated **Life-Hunt** the outline of the governor at his desk, writing furiously.

The heartbeat was dangerously fast, Zac had no idea what had the Governor in such a state but he figured he'd find out.

Throwing the door open he strode in like a dangerous predator and threw back his hood, the man before him was a richly dressed blond with curled locks and deep blue eyes, his skin was fair but stretched from his weight, he wore clothes of clashing, bright colours and had one of those neck ruffle things.

"Wh-what in the name of the Goddess are you-" The man began, he made to stand but the flash of yellow in the vampires eyes made him stop.

"_**You will be seated and you will tell me what it is you have planned for the children you've stolen**_." The bassy mirror in his throat was an odd sensation but it made his heart thunder with power, _this_ was the difference between man and his predator, _this _was what it felt like to be on top.

The man's eyes glassed over for a moment as he calmed down and slowly sat, pulling his chair back in for comfort, "I-I was using her as a bargaining chip… the elven kingdoms to the south have been slowly getting closer to Axel as the decades have passed, my father may not have noticed it, nor my grandfather, but I did. And I won't let them muscle in on human territory!"

Zachary closed the door behind him and tapped his chestplate, a spectral lion was conjured at his side and sat guarding the only exit.

He strode forward and looked down at the frightened man, "What interest would the elves have with Axel?"

To be totally honest, Zac didn't even know there were elves in this world. And to find out a governor of a low-interest city had managed to arrange the kidnapping of someone important enough to halt a nation!?

It spoke volumes of either the man's resources, or the elves incompetence.

"To gain a foothold to assault Belzerg? I do not know, but the King has made no move to correct them, so I will do it myself! My country and my city will not be taken by those muddy-knife ears!" Snapped the man with hatred, spittle jettisoning from his mouth as he spewed those words.

"Between them and the Demon King the humans are walking a dangerous line, I'm sure you had no choice." Zachary said sympathetically, nodding.

The man relaxed somewhat, but the flash of yellow came again, "_**Who is it that you have kidnapped? And how did you manage it?**_"

The fading sensation of **Command** was super weird.

"The Underprincess of the Drow kingdom, a more minor faction of the elven society but nonetheless important, she's currently under the guard of my house magus, Alisser. As to the how, well… the elves are so sure of themselves that even basic duplicity is lost on them. I created several fake letters posing as lords from across the country, asking for her hand, and when they finally accepted one of them, I had her taken and brought here… they didn't even bring guards for her." The Governor said simply, lacking all expression as the compulsions began to mesh together.

Zachary frowned, it sounded like the elves were used to being in charge and the idea that humans would even _attempt_ something against them was so far removed from their minds that they failed to understand a simple plot.

'_My god… they're idiots._' Zachary thought with an internal sigh.

"So you decided to take matters into your own hands, of course… who was going to help you? No one, surely." Zachary said, understandingly.

The governor nodded, "None appreciated my commitment to our country or to Axel. Those whom I confided in called me mad for wishing to protect my people, mad!"

"And now you're left holding the bloody dagger, so to speak." The Beastmaster said casually, "What exactly is, and Underprincess?"

"Second in line for the throne, the spare. Elves have incredibly potent resistance to poisons, and take centuries to age like humans do, she's spent the like two hundred years merely existing as a second hand to her elder brother, the Crown Prince of the Drow, Akaez."

"Interesting… very interesting…" A few ideas twisted about in his head, but he didn't really put much stock in them, the first - moustache twirling evil one - was to try to convince her to shack up with him so he could have a more potent political position in the world.

Then again, that'd be retarded for his current plans. Killing the demon king required power, not a cushy place to not sleep.

He snorted in amusement, it was something his younger self would immediately jump at, more power always more!

'_Kinda short sighted if I may say myself._' Who knows, maybe in a century or two he'd give it a spin, try to get into the royal something.

Fuck he could probably make his own kingdom with enough time.

"Here's what's going to happen, Gov'. You're going to write a note, saying you took your own life. Then you're going to go into hiding, because there are elements of the city that wish to see you gone. Fear not though, I'll take care of… _**everything**_." The Beastmaster said with a rolling bass to his voice.

The man nodded dully and went about doing just that, Zachary perused the information he'd kept on the Underprincess, a woman named Olga, she was a mage herself, though nobles oft kept to Conjuration instead of outright offensive magic like Evocation.

'_Right, so now I've got to plan on what to do with the woman. I can't just give her back to the elves, if the Gov' is right, that's the only thing protecting Axel… I guess they're thinking that human lives are short enough that eventually she'll be able to leave without a problem…' _As he finished this internal monologue an idea struck him like thunder.

"Which was this mission…" Zachary looked skywards, "Eris keep me… I guess this manor is going to get mighty quiet."

There goes his Lordship.

'_Walter and I are going to have to talk._'

Yeah apparently they're last names were there first names, Alderp was the Governor, and Walter was the son.

Fucking stupid nobles.

He dismissed the lion that was at the door and left, closing it gently behind him.

He threw open the door to Walter's room, the young man was in bed, just about to fall asleep when suddenly he shot up.

"_**Walter, did you know that the Elven Kingdoms are encroaching upon human territory!?**_" Boomed the undead man, Walter's eyes glassed over and he stumbled as the compulsion forced the words out of his mouth.

"I-I did know, but I thought it was unjust to take someone from their home-for any reason!" It looked like Walter was trying to fight the compulsion.

Zac sneered, the problem was that now the quest parametres were void, so technically he had to leave the job. But to keep Axel from falling he had to do a little house cleaning.

"I've got no ill with you, Walter. But returning this woman to her kingdom is a fools goal." Zachary said with a hiss, "If the elves are really using the war with the Demon King to gain territory you're putting the lives of ever man, woman and child in Axel at risk!"

"The ends do not justify the means!" Walter rebuked passionately, his eyes cleared of the haze, he quickly stood from bed and grabbed his sword, "I will not have my people reduced to such base creatures because of my father's actions!"

"The man may have been an idiot to kidnap the girl, but he's at least doing something! Open your eyes man, what would conquest even mean for your people!" Shot back the Beastmaster with fury.

"The elves would not bring any true harm to the humans of Axel, nor the Kingdom of Belzerg." Walter said firmly, "I truly believe that only by working with out neighbours to the south, can we beat bat the horde of monsters."

"Which may have been possible if this situation was in the hands of the King, but it's not, you're the adopted son of a soon-to-be disgraced noble." Snapped the Australian, "You're a nobody as far as the world is concerned, so here's a little tidbit for you."

Zachary's eyes flashed yellow but the compulsion did not settle into his voice immediately, "I'm going to fix this situation, and you're going to go **away!**"

Walter fought the compulsion and wrestled with it internally, "I-I will not be controlled, and I will not abandon my people!"

"You're an idiot who doesn't know any better!" Zachary snarled, "I've got an entire developed worlds history to know that a 'peaceful' takeover doesn't exist!" Flashing a sign with his hands Zachary imbued himself with Jin - Man - and conjured a Fuuma Shuriken, with a heave he lobbed it at the noble Knight who parried the conjured weapon into a wall.

"Betrayal it shall be!" Walter shot forward, his body flashing various colours as he self-buffed.

"Only a fool thinks that surrendering his kingdom in a time of strife is good for his people, and the world already has enough fools." Zachary caught the sword by the blade and snapped it with his supernatural strength, his hand lashed out and grabbed Walter's neck, with a twist it was snapped in twain and the man dropped down, paralyzed.

Zachary threw a dagger into his throat and left the room, Alderp was leaving down the hall, the compulsion so steeped into him it was like watching an automaton.

He left the room and walked down the stairs, using **Life-Hunt** to track down the captured woman and the one guarding her.

**Manor Cellar**

Coming upon the sight of an elven woman that was easily an extra head taller than even he - making her about 6' 8" or something - getting frisky with a petite young magus was not what he really needed in the evening.

"If it's not Dragon Age I can always rely on other sources for gay women in high positions of power." Muttering to himself and rolling his eyes he strode towards the poorly conjured bars meant to keep the elven woman in, the hired hand of a wizard was probably not practiced in the art.

Clearing his throat loudly the two of them immediately looked at who it was, and upon seeing an armed and armoured stranger, leapt away from one another, the wizard reaching for her staff and the elf looking confused.

"So, guarding her seems to be working well for you, Alisser." Zachary said dryly, she almost immediately calmed at having her name spoken.

"You uh… must be my relief yeah? Sorry about that…" Alisser was a young woman that was quite thin but also lanky, she had short black hair and silvery-grey eyes, like steel. She wore a fitted tunic with a loose scarf, black leather pants and boots.

Her staff was a simple thing that was wrapped in cloth, a little like Megumin's now that he thought about it.

"Enjoy your free time, hopefully less than your work time." He said, gesturing with a thumb to stairs leading up.

Alisser blushed and left quickly.

Silence reigned for a moment, the Underprincess dressing herself once more.

She had mocha skin, it seemed impossibly smooth to the eyes. Her hair was a dark raven colour and seemed to nearly absorb light, she had big white iris' with black rings around them and purple pupils. Her ears were easily 30ish centimetres long, or about the size of an average foot.

She 'wore' dark scaled leather, looking like it was cut off a snake and slapped across her huge tits, her shoulders and midriff were exposed, and she wore a long, silky black sarong to cover her legs, a pair of simple footwraps to keep her feet somewhat safe,

All in all she just looked like a who lotta woman.

Zachary's arms remained crossed, "So, princess. I've got some questions about your kingdom."

The woman seemed quite pleased, she looked around his age so she was probably several decades his elder, "I'd be happy to share, ask what you will."

"The Governor seems to think that the elves want to expand into human territory. Is that true?"

"Oh, very much so, Though not in the way you humans may think, eventually all things will return to my people, and yours will be wiped out by the Dark One." She seemed quite confident in this, but not in a malicious way.

"What makes you so sure?" Zachary asked, his brow quirked.

"This world is cyclical, life exists in a cycle. This one is coming to a close, your humans always face some great tragedy but my people remain untouched by it, or time. We have existed for thousands of your human years unimpeded by either time or strife." She explained, easily, gently as though breaking a harsh truth.

"Some of my people were beginning to get impatient, so claimed a few hundred metres of land back, they're much more content now, my being here is more of a vacation for me than anything." Admitted the Underprincess with a smile.

"Cool, coolcoolcool." Zac muttered, "Right so, basically. You elves exist out of whatever natural order this world has fallen into. You have, essentially, no predators."

"That is an accurate way of putting it yes, whatever strife occurs seem to just leave us alone." The Underprincess said.

Zachary sighed and rubbed his head, "Great so that was an unnecessary murder… Okay, your low-ness." Zachary said, getting her full attention, "Here's a reality check for you, this current great evil is gonna be bent over my knee and the human kingdoms will be fine, I'm half tempted to send you back to your people to tell them to either help of fuck off. But I get the feeling it'd take a few years to get a letter back."

"So here's the plan, I'm going to drink your blood, and then I'm going to make you a thrall. _Then_ you're going to go back to your kingdom and make yourself useful." He broke the poorly created bars easily enough and strode towards her.

She seemed curious about this, "Why would a human wish to drink elven blood?"

"Not human, sweetheart." His green eyes flashed dangerously as he removed his hood.

"But I am **Hungry!**" She shrieked as his fangs struck her flesh.

**End.**

**Hope you enjoyed.**

**Little worldly intrigue, dunno if anyone would care for it as Konosuba doesn't really seem fussed with worldbuilding outside of a few things, from what I've seen at least.**

**Lemme know what you think, and throw out a few ideas for other party members.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	15. Chapter 15

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

**Major Experience Boost Due to Consumption of Blood from an Elder Race (Elven).**

**Minor Stat Boost Due to Consumption of Blood from an Elder Race (Elven)**

**Bonus to Darkvision due to Consumption of Elder Race (Drow)**

**Vampiric Skill - Blush of Life unlocked.**

**Blush of Life; Forces blood to pump and body to act like it is alive for a single day, requires potent blood to activate and requires a day of rest afterwards.**

Zac heard rumours of a certain cafe where some of the men from the guild went in the off hours, and he figured he'd give it a go.

He needed to wash his mind of all the revelations it had undergone.

The fact that this world existed in an apparently endless cycle ala Dark Souls, or the fact that - upon consumption of the blood - he was able to see centuries of existence through the Underprincess, elven perspective was so alien to a human mind.

They truly didn't see them as sentient creatures, they thought all humans so below them that they were at best, play things, and at worst ants.

Her time in the prison was like the blink of an eye, barely registered in the grand game of elven life.

It made him feel, very small.

Like looking out into a starswept sky and realising how utterly insignificant a single life is in the grand scheme of it all.

His hands felt clammy and his brow felt hot, but his body was as it was usually, room temperature at best.

The Cafe was a little hole in the wall, the inside was plush and comforting, the waitresses all had… something about them that forced the eye to follow.

"Welcome to the Cafe." The receptionist greeted, her voice was like lightning down his spine, it made him turn on a razors edge to look at her fully, she leaned over the counter with a coquettish smile and a bright, knowing, look in her eyes.

"Not often we see the Undead here." She commented idly, though winked one of her gorgeous blue eyes as she did so, "Especially not Mr. Big Hero who saved us all from that dangerous Dullahan."

Zachary's primal instincts were as sharp as before his change, and the scent of this place very quickly drew him into a very… base frame of mind, with a snicker he grinned, "Big is very flattering, but I'd save it's average."

The woman quickly joined him in laughing at the dirty joke, "You can call me Candice, sweet Hero. What brings you to the Cafe?"

He did notice that when she laughed her pointed ears wiggled, which in itself was cute enough to pull him from his purely sexual thoughts, they weren't elven that was for sure. None of the girls here were elves, though each was as beautiful as… comparing them to humans felt rude, truthfully.

They each had some kind of marking on their displayed flesh, and wore some pretty risque outfits, Candice wore some mix between BDSM leathers and lingerie, having a sweeping spiraling pattern around her neck into her cleavage.

Shooting back into reality he quickly blinked, Candice had a wide grin on her lips, moving some pink hair behind one of her ears.

"I heard about it from some of the others in the guild… didn't expect this, to be honest." Zachary admitted, he was all for putting on a bold front, but most of his sexual experience had been firmly on the bad side.

"Well, during the day we're just your standard cafe… at night we reveal our true nature." Little bat wings appeared on her head and a long red tail slinked about from behind her back, a very pleased smile stretched across her face, "So, welcome to the Succubus Cafe. Where we make your dreams come true."

'_Yes-yes-yes!_'

It must have read on his face because she snickered and offered him a form, "If you'd fill out this, we can get you what you need."

"Gods, need is putting it lightly…" Zachary said looking the form over, there was the option of 'Pleasant Dreams' 'Carnal Bliss' 'Happiest End' and so on.

"Been a while then?" Candice asked curiously, "Surely not."

"I'll take that as a compliment." He said absently, he felt his heart thundering in his chest, and blood rushing like a river at the promise of release.

He'd been in Belzerg for weeks, and hadn't been able to get off the entire time.

He was exceptionally backed up.

"Please do." Candice very obviously licked her lips, "I'm partial to adventurers, the danger of it… hmm."

'_Still classier than any whore I've met_.' He thought to himself, interestingly enough the form even had things like allergies and medical requirements, quite thoughtful.

"I must ask, as an Undead can you…?" She left it hanging and very obviously looked at his crotch.

"I can control the blood in my own body, so yes. Yes I can. I just can't eat normal food, or have kids." Zachary said, "Though I can do both of those now just need to do a little hand-wavey magic."

"Good to know." She said with a cheshire grin, getting a laugh from the man.

Zachary signed the form and handed it back to her, Candice looked it over and nodded a few times, making a pleased noise now and then.

"Under choking you just put, 'yes'." She stated, looking up at him and smiling.

Zac just gave her a thumbs up, "I know what I'm all about, if I didn't have these fucking talons I'd also hand out some back scratches."

"Probably for the best." Candice said with a chuckle, "Now, I ask this to everyone, are you acceptable to giving up some life-force in exchange for our services? We only take gold during the day."

Zac shrugged, "If you can get some outta me go hard."

"The idea is for _you_ to go hard, darling." Candice shot back with a laugh.

Zachary threw his head back and the intoxicating mesh of mirth and desire blended in his chest, he leant forward and looked her dead in the eye, "Please tell me I can have you all to myself."

"Forward!" Candice said, slapping his shoulder with a smirk, "You'd be amazed how many people don't have the stones to flirt with the receptionist."

"I'm not hearing a no." The Beastmaster pressed.

Candice traced his jaw with one of her fingers, "I can be all yours and more, Mr. Hero." She whispered gently.

It took _literally_ all of his self control not to lose his mind in that moment, "My place or yours." He said instead, his voice heavy with his wants.

Candice looked around and whistled to get the attention of a small girl, a Smoli, one might say.

"Cover for me, will ya Trixie?" Candice immediately left her post and grabbed a handful of vampire - not that she knew that - in her hand.

Zac stiffened - yes - for a moment before grinning savagely.

Trixie - small blonde and childish - looked up at her senior and her prize with envy, "Have fun."

"Oh, we will."

**End**

**A little intermission chapter, because life is reflected in stories.**

**I had a great time with a friend of mine, inspiration is great.**

**The suggestions have been great, I'll admit to leaning towards Tharja from Fire Emblem, or other characters that are more background based.**

**Za Warudo raised a very valid point that supporting cast would work better as they are more flexible and can get more of a spotlight.**

**Considering someone from maybe Dragon Age or fuck even something like Yugioh, who knows? I'll have a moment where it all clicks I'm sure.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	16. Chapter 16

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

**You Are Well Rested, all EXP gains are doubled temporarily.**

Green eyes opened with a sparkle of life that even the saints couldn't judge.

Zachary was sat comfortably in the Void across from Eris who smiled brightly at his appearance, "Don't worry, you're not dead again."

"I wouldn't even be mad if I was." Zac immediately said in return, "I would have gone out exactly how I would have wanted to, entangled with a gorgeous woman as lovely things happened to our lower halves."

Eris flushed brightly, placing her hands over her face.

Zachary continued, feeling like a King, "I swear, the things she could do with her tongue, it's a good thing I'm undead because I would have definitely died and gone straight to heaven-No! I was already in it!"

He stood up and threw his hands out, "Also can we talk about how she asked me to stop beacuse, and I quote, 'I'm going to die if you don't'! What a fucking magnificent existence I lead!"

He threw his head back and laughed like a madman, Eris got redder and redder before she struck him with a low-powered **Smite**, knocking him down and making his skin burn.

"I don't even care!" He shouted out, no concern for the pain at all.

Eris sighed and waited for him to calm, it wouldn't do to have on of her champions stupefied before returning to his body.

Zac sat back into the chair and smiled, "So what's up, you've been gone from town for a while now."

Eris nodded and rested her hands in her lap, "I've been quite busy, new domains to look after and so on. Though I've decided to change up the usual method, I've got a few different people in mind to send off towards Axel, to start again as you did. I just thought I could ask you to look after them during their initial adjustment period."

Zac hummed in thought, "I don't really mind a little babysitting duty, sure. When can I expect them?"

"Only a pair at the moment, I didn't want to overload you with bodies, as it were." Eris said, and two tarot looking cards formed in the air between them.

**The Dark Witch - Tharja.**

Information burned into his mind, a world lost to Risen monsters, a daughter that she'd used to create the worst kinds of curses, a life lived twice over, a man with white hair and a loving smile, a kingdom not her own, a home lost and desert filled with soldiers.

The images and flashes didn't make total sense for a few moments but after a few minutes of digesting it, his mind managed to wrap around the idea.

Tharja was a young woman from a desert Kingdom called Plegia, during her life it was at war with a neighbouring country, Ylisse. First for religious views, and then again because of an insane ruler, Gangrel.

Tharja joined an enemy military unit called the Shepherds during a conflict in Plegia and found herself smitten with the Tactician, Robin. The unit stayed together for years and eventually the leader, Chrom became the Exalt - King - of Ylisse, though after many wars and battles Tharja eventually found herself quite alone in the world.

Robin did not return her affections and it sent her somewhat mad.

Though the problem was all the future children that came back in time from an alternate timeline to assist their parents with the help of the local goddess Naga.

'_Fucking christ my thoughts have never been so convoluted..._' Lamented the Australian as his brain kept trying to straighten out the timeline of her life.

So her child, Noire returned and apparently in that alternate timeline she and Robin _did_ get together and have a child, but either because of some butterfly effect or otherwise, Robin never found interest in Tharja, so she took it out on Noire somewhat ferociously.

Though unlike the alternate future Tharja this one didn't do it in a blind path of vengeance that eventually led with her sacrificing herself for the child she loved all along, she did it to try and goad Robin into taking responsibility, even though he had no love to give a child he would never father.

The second-hand shame of seeing through Tharja's eyes as she looked at the child of the man she loved and knew she'd never attain him, really stung.

Eventually the grief sent her down an exceptionally dark path and after Robin sacrificed himself to rid the world of the ultimate evil she just… disappeared.

Even her memories don't give any real hints.

"Fuck!" Zachary cursed loudly as his head throbbed, Eris winced sympathetically. "Jesus I know that Kazuma has his own collection but did I really need problem children of my own?"

"Belzerg is the staging ground of a new chance at life." Eris said diplomatically, "For those from outer-realms it is supposed to be a fresh start, and a second chance. Also she seemed your type."

"You-what when?" Zachary looked at the goddess, baffled.

Eris snorted and laughed loudly, "I kid-I kid! But the look on your face!"

The blond grunted at the amused god, "But really though, I do think she deserves a second go at life."

"So what, you gonna sit her down like you did me?" Eris nodded, "Have you heard of psych evaluations and background checks? Because I don't mean to harsh on the girl, she seems like a whole lotta woman actually, but giving her some kind of broken artefact doesn't seem like the best idea."

"I am able to give _and_ take away, Zac." Eris said simply, for some reason his hand clasped around the gauntlet form of Thori'dal. "You're so possessive." She rolled her eyes and gestured the other card forward.

"Can you blame me though, she treated that poor girl like a tool!" Snapped the man with a ferocious look in his eyes.

Eris smiled gently, "Feeling oddly paternal today, aren't we?"

Zac balked and had trouble meeting her eyes.

"It's an effect of the memories, it will fade with time." The Goddess assured, "I must ask though, are you willing to house this woman?"

Zac looked at the floating card of the dark haired, pale skinned Dark Mage and frowned, did she deserve a second chance? Or was it a case of being doomed from the start?

'_Well, Dad would say yes because she's a hot female with a pulse. And Mum would say yes because it's the right thing to do, and _I _would say yes because I've seen her life and by the gods does she deserve some joy_.' The man thought, sighing he nodded.

Eris clapped excitedly and smiled, "Excellent!-"

A flash filled the void and in a moment Zachary was standing between Eris and the chair he previously inhabited, off to the side somewhat.

In his place was the risquely dressed Dark Mage, most of her was covered with some kind of transparent catsuit, her breasts were protected by some almost-leather bra with golden trim, and her crotch was kept mostly out of sight by a draped cloth and underwear.

'_Jesus and the saints I have been blessed with vision._' Zachary thought, amused with himself.

Her keen eyes locked onto Eris, and scanned him but must have found him wanting because she ignored him quickly, "What do you want?"

She had a sort of rolling voice, that was half-miserable and half-disinterested.

Probably because of dying.

He was much the same.

"I am the Goddess Eris, and I bring you before me from the afterlife with an offer of a second chance." Eris greeted gently, "This is an associate of mine, Zachary."

"Pleasure." The undead man greeted with a tilt of his head.

"It's all yours." She rebuked with a cold look, "What kind of second chance? I've never heard of you before."

"To answer your statement before your question, I am one of the many divine beings looking after purgatory, and looking for souls within to be given a second chance at life. You'll be resurrected but you cannot return to your home realm, you will be sent to a new world full of life much like your previous one however, with magic, and monsters and such. You'll be given an artefact of substantial power, and a boon."

"Sounds too good to be true." Tharja shot back instantly, crossing her arms.

"There is a catch, yes." Eris said understanding the young woman's position, "You will have to work with fellow reincarnates to defeat the Demon King, who is currently reigning chaos on the country of Belzerg."

Tharja rolled her grey eyes disinterestedly, "I spent a long portion of my life in a war, why would I want another?"

"To be honest I was reincarnated weeks ago and the most I've done is murder monsters to amass power." Zachary informed with a shrug.

This seemed to get her attention, "Why's that?"

"Because the world I originally came from had no magic, and relied solely on human ingenuity to get things done, and most of the planet was filled with fucking idiots." Zac said with a smile, "The magic, the adventure. It was all very new to me, very novel. I promised Eris I'd kill the Demon King, and to do so I've got to collect as much power as possible."

"Am I something for you collection, oh champion?" Snapped the Desert Witch scathingly.

"No." The Vampire said with a shake of his head, "I mean, if you wanted to work together I'd welcome the company. But the only time you'll really want to be seeing me is the first week or so to adjust to living in Axel, after that you can do as you please."

"Hmph… an artefact you say?" Tharja turned her attention back to Eris, "Such as?"

"Anything you can think of, or if you wish I can recommend some. There is a catalogue for you to peruse at your leisure." A flash appeared on top of Tharja's lap and the same book Zac had read so long ago appeared.

"If you wish some time to look it over, I shall attend to others." Tharja waved off the goddess and she disappeared.

"Tell me about this world." Ordered the Dark Mage, as she opened the book.

"It's pretty simplistic, all things considered. Much like your old world but a little more…? Magic is much more common, I'm an Archer primarily and use magic for just about everything in my life. The people are decent enough, though they usually keep to themselves." Zac didn't even want to think about the elf situation he'd inevitably have to deal with, what with eternal life and all.

"Hm.. do you know anything about this King we supposedly have to vanquish?" She asked, turning a page of the Book of Legends.

"Not a lot, aside from the fact that the monster population has skyrocketed since his taking the throne, he's managed to concoct some pretty fucking heinous monsters, Manticore's for example, are a pain."

"That name means nothing to me." Tharja admitted, looking up at that armoured hunter with a smirk, "You keep saying monsters… do you have Risen?"

"No. The Risen a problem purely of your own realm." Zachary informed, there was a glint in her eye he didn't particularly understand but pressed on, "Though undead exist, like skeletons and zombies. I'm a Vampire, though not like the other's you may encounter."

"A what?" Tharja gave him her full attention.

Zachary cleared his throat, "I am a creature of the night, walking with the shadows and slaying mine enemies as they present themselves, I am the eternal hunger and thirst, the crimson king, the lord of the dead, I am a Vampire!"

Tharja seemed unimpressed, "Very interesting, but not informative."

"I drink the blood of either humans or creatures instead of food, I can't go out in direct sunlight or I'll burn up until there's nothing left but my bones. The trade off is that I have enough strength to break a dragon's neck, the speed of a lightning strike, and the fortitude to have a castle dropped on me and keep moving." Explained the man with a roll of his eyes.

"Interesting…" Tharja admitted, "A creature of darkness, using the life force of others to live…"

"But that's not really important." Zachary said, waving his hand, "The world won't be completely foreign to you, but there are certain systems that you'll have to learn if you decide to come down."

"So if I hexed you, would it even work?" Tharja asked, "Because there were only certain ones that worked on the Risen, and if they work anything like you do…"

Zac sighed, rubbing his head, "I'm not totally sure. Most of the magic I use is illusory, to confuse people. I guess we'll have to see?"

That seemed to be the thing to say, "Yes. Yes we will." There was something supremely hot about that purr in her throat, but also totally threatening.

It was pretty great.

"Explain these items to me… none of them look even vaguely familiar." Tharja demanded, gesturing him over.

Zac strode to her side and looked over her shoulder, "Well, considering magic doesn't require a catalyst like in your world, Book or Rod. I'd suggest choosing something that can either supercharge your mana, or spell power."

Tharja seemed to consider this, as the book raced to meet her thoughts, a staff that drew mana from the ley lines and made it almost impossible to run out, a pair of bracelets that could store magic, a ring that would draw power from celestial bodies to add secondary effects to all spells.

Tharja chewed her nail in thought, a wicked grin on her face.

"If you can find a boon that does something similar to an item it would mean you can either double-dip or get something else."

She decided on the **Atronach **which would allow her to take mana from spells cast at her, or near her, and would also give her a scaling bonus amount of mana.

Her item of choice was **The Tormentor** a staff that when a spell from it, hit the target would **Charm** them, regardless of power. This would effectively make it so Tharja would never be hit, and could throw her enemies against each other.

That was very her.

"Nice choices, they synergise well with one another." Zachary praised, the woman smirked dangerously at him.

"So if you every annoy me, I can make you go away." Tharja snickered at the look on his face.

One thing he did notice about the woman, both her personal-future incarnation and the one before him, was that whilst she was a to the core cold woman, she was also capable of great sweeps of emotion, her love was a powerful thing, and whilst it was rare her joy was just as real as anyone else's.

She was just hardened by life, he could sympathise with that.

Eris returned, drawing him from his thoughts, "Your choices have been made? Good, Zachary will help you acclimate to the new world, if you truly wish to end the curse of the Demon King, I'd ask you work together."

"Yes… of course." Tharja said, dry sarcasm falling from her mouth, Zachary admitted it was an odd choice of Eris' part but he'd go along with it either way, company was always welcome, and it might mean the guest room got used for a change.

**End**

**Hope you enjoyed the first new party member, I had another one in mind but I'm gonna stew on it for a little, so the next chapter will likely be Tharja-antics.**

**Many thanks to those who take time to leave their words of suggestions, and I look forward to entertaining you all again soon.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	17. Chapter 17

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 0**

**Dark Mage**

**Strength: 10 Dexterity: 19**

**Constitution: 11 Intelligence: 91**

**Wisdom: 80 Luck: 5]**

Zachary guided Tharja around town, showing her the various points of interest, she seemed quite taken with Wiz's shop.

Taking her to the guild was interesting.

As they walked in all eyes immediately shifted to the scantily clad woman, she looked at them like they were garbage, her steely eyes looked up at her companion.

"Why are they staring at us." She questioned him simply by looking up his hooded form, '_Those disturbing red eyes… majestic._'

"They're probably eyeing you up." He responded simply.

"That doesn't explain anything." Tharja said with a frown.

Zac made a lengthy gesture at basically her entire being, "All this." He said with an audible smile, "The long flowing 'robes' the long black hair, you've also got great t'n'a. I assumed you were flaunting it because you really should be."

Tharja looked confused, gazing down at herself and then at those around them, sure they wore extremely dissimilar outfits, but she was born and raised in a desert, clothing was primarily to keep the sun off your skin, and to allow you to be cool in the day.

"This is how most people from Plegia dressed. Especially the mages." She informed with a displeased expression, "Are you saying they assume me to be some kind of… streetwalker?"

"Hey, if they're too distracted looking at your body, they'll never see the fireball." Zac said with a shrug, Tharja paused for a moment and really looked at him, "What?"

She kept her gaze and smirked, "Am I desirable to you then?" Tharja all but purred.

Chuckling, "Yes you're very lovely, now we've gotta get you registered before-"

"Waller!" Snapped a voice from within the guild, out marched Kazuma followed by the brady bunch.

"What is the meaning of this!" The brown haired youth demanded, Zachary looked at him with confusion, "It's bad enough you've got a busted artefact _and_ all the attention of the women in the guild, now you're bringing beautiful mages here!? Is that to make me feel bad!"

The japanese boy threw his hand towards Megumin who was eating her lunch contently, looking up suddenly fearful of being in the Hunter's line of sight, "Look at this travesty! As flat as a board, and you bring this-this _goddess_ into the guild without a hint of guilt!"

Tharja sidled behind her companion and stuck her head around him with a sneer, "Stop looking at me like that." She demanded, she'd seen that look many times over her life. A lustful cretin with nothing but sex on the mind.

"Put your dick away Kazuma." Zachary snarled, "Have some fucking decency, _boy_."

Kazuma snapped at him, only for a hand to clasp over his face, baleful red eyes staring him down.

"Back. Off." Snarled the Beastmaster, "Or I'll summon LaCroix and listen as you're slowly digested."

Kazuma paled and quickly retreated, only to be smacked by Megumin's staff, making him wince.

"A pleasure to meet you, miss. Any friend of Zachary's is a friend of mine, I am Darkness." Greeted the Crusader with a slight bow of her head.

"You are the furthest thing from the dark I've ever seen." Tharja commented idly from behind her body-shield.

"Her name is Tharja, that's how she says hello." Zachary explained, getting a cheery nod from the blonde girl. "How was the quest with the sprites?"

Darkness grinned brightly, "It was magnificent, the cold cut to the bone-I've never felt so exposed! And then we met the Winter Shogun, shamefully he slew Kazuma but Aqua managed to resurrect him easily enough."

"Probably lost some brain cells on the way back." Zachary thought aloud, was Kazuma given a deal similar to his own? Collect another item and make it your last return?

Darkness sighed, "No he's just usually like that. Regardless, it was good to see you again, it feels like we've missed one another for some time."

Zachary considered it and nodded, "It has actually, did you wanna get lunch some time, catch up properly?"

"Oh!" Lalatina blinked, blushing vibrantly, "Yes, I'd love that, thank you for offering!"

Grinning beneath the shadow of his hood the man nodded, "Good-good, I'll scout out a decent place and get back to you soon."

"I look forward to it." Darkness gave quick dip and left the two alone.

"Treat all the girls like that?" Tharja asked, trying to get a read on the man she was living with.

"She's a friend, I try to spend time with my friends." Zachary explained simply, "Makes life less… ugh."

Tharja hummed, "Indeed."

"Let's get you registered, and we'll go and kill some stuff to get you used to the system." Zachary gestured to the front desk and the Dark Mage nodded.

A smirk on her face, she thought '_A slight bleeding heart perhaps? He seems too normal to be some menacing creature of the night. Too much like those from the war…_'

"Don't people usually ask each other about their lives before they shed blood together?" Tharja asked, it was something Robin would do often, or the Prince-Exalt.

She supposed she owed a debt to the Exalt, without him, or his sisters execution, she'd never have had the experiences she did.

She could have done without the agony of rejection though.

"Eris showed me some parts, enough to know where you came from and stuff about your personal history." Admitted the Beastmaster with a shrug, Tharja looked at him archly, "I saw some of your life, through your eyes. The memories are still settling in but I know enough for the moment."

"How much do you know." She asked dangerously.

"I know about Noire." He admitted quietly, almost gently. in a tone that surprised Tharja _many_ commented on her 'parenting' style or lack thereof.

"And the wars." He continued, looking forlorn. "I saw the end of it, I know you don't care for pity, but I understand some of what you went through."

"Participate in a lot of wars that involve evil gods?" Tharja hissed quietly.

"No, I was talking about then end. I understand what it's like to lose something that you consider part of your being." The man said with a shrug.

"What are you doing?" She hissed, almost angrily, but mostly confused.

"What?" He asked, caught off-guard.

"What's this act of yours? You trying to get something out of me?"

Zachary shook his head, "No, you lost your _bird._ I lost my mother."

"Oh really?" Tharja asked, halfway between callous and cautious.

Leaning onto his right foot, he crossed his shoulders, "Look, I was just trying to say if you need to talk about some of the shit you've been through I'm willing to listen, but I'm not going to go over the gory details of my mother's death with you in the middle of the guild."

"Much appreciated, Mr. Waller." Luna said with a pale face, gulping somewhat at the projected aura's of her resident Hunter and a newcomer.

"Ah~..." Zachary said with a blink, "Sorry about that, Luna… this is Tharja, she's here to register with the guild - I'll cover the fee - and join my party."

"Of course, please place your hand on this, Ms. Tharja." The blonde woman bid, Tharja almost snapped at her but refrained, she was being defensive and knew it.

A blue card was spat out of the bottom, Zachary leant down and pointed out the information to her, making Luna smiled gently at the scene, much better than them biting each-other's heads off.

"...so you pick a class here, I'd suggest Wizard as it's basically the same thing as a Mage."

"Why would I not just pick Arch Wizard?" Tharja asked curiously, seemingly fascinated.

"If you want to get the basic skills to build upon, it's best to pick up the lower tier classes first. Don't worry you'll level them up pretty quickly. Maybe two or three quests with me and we'll get you past Wizard into something more your speed."

"Like the Seals then, the Silver and Master." Tharja posed the question and got a smiling nod in return, this man confused her greatly, he was too emotive, even with his face shrouded in the dark.

"Exactly. Also, if you really wanna delve into black magic, you can use Wizard to go into Necromancer after you do a little fiddling with some dark spells, summon up hordes of Undead with your mana capacity and put them between you and whatever you want dead."

"It would make whatever little war you wish to wage on the Demon King much easier, with disposable units." She admitted with a sinister grin, "Very well, take me to slay beasts. I wish to test this lands magic."

Luna was very afraid of the new adventurer.

**Belzerg Countryside - Goblin Cave**

"**Poison Mist!**" Tharja commanded, her staff spewed an enormous black cloud of smoke that quickly slid into the cave, a simple spell such as **Poison Mist** would usually release a small cloud, but with her bullshit staff it overcharged any spell she used.

It also made it hilarious to see a bunch of goblins covered in bleeding sores running out of the cave only to begin killing each other at her command.

Zac found himself laughing despite himself, struggling to remain upright as one Goblin kicked another in the nose and it bent sideways.

Tharja seemed immeasurably pleased with herself, and cackled quietly, "Don't worry, I'll clean up… **Flaming Sphere!**" A massive ball of flames descended on the pile of dead goblins and immediately did two things.

The goblin pile was burnt away to dust, and the residual **Poison Mist** ignited and sent a violent whip-crack of flames through the cave, all in all it took maybe two seconds to happen by fuck it was cool.

"Ahh~ that was awesome." Zachary praised with a grin, "Gonna have to remember that your mist is flammable."

"Fire has such a charm to it…" Tharja said quietly.

"Fire is awesome, this is a fact." Agreed the Archer, "But Lightning is distinctly cooler. The potent scent of ozone _just_ before the strike, and then **BAM** every nerve ending is fried and your target is probably a drooling idiot."

"Speaking from experience?" Tharja asked with a smirk.

His hands sparked dangerously with purple electricity, "**Shocking Grasp** picked it up for when I use melee." Fishing a dagger of his belt the electricity quickly surged up and down the blade.

"Hm, interesting."

Pulling out his card Zachary looked at what was next, "So we cleared this cave, but there's another two to go… did you wanna check the inside?"

"Why? They're just naked monsters…" Tharja snickered with a sinister note in the back of her throat, "Well… they were."

'_Hm. Dangerous women, who woulda thought?_' Another one for the list it seemed, "They're like magpies, they'll take whatever is shiny. Anything magical wouldn't have been cooked by your fire…" Whislting sharply he summoned Jeremy.

"Hunt down the next cave." The giant crow flew off without a word and Zachary gestured to the cave, Tharja frowned but followed, with a tap of her staff the head lit up in flames.

The staff itself was a winding red rod with an amorous red glowing crystal at the top, it was surrounded by a winding ring of metal rose thorns that spiraled from base to tip, though with enough space between each revelation to hold comfortably by its wielder.

Zachary had to duck a little to enter the goblin hovel but his vision was as sharp as a razors edge in the dark, it made him grin brightly at the prospect of never having to be the stupid human who got knifed in the dark alley.

He drew another dagger and gripped them loosely as he scanned the cave for anything or merit.

Tharja grunted behind him, "The smell is atrocious…"

Zachary blinked, he hadn't actually noticed a smell to be honest. He must just be used to things smelling terrible after so many murdered monsters.

"There's a small nook here." Zac said, leaning down at the end section of the goblin cave, it was a relatively small tribe so the cave itself was probably only 100 metres, quite long true, but it was mostly winding paths.

A hastily placed stone covered up a small cache, inside was a small collection of gold jewels, probably taken from some noble sap, and a necklace of some kind.

Magic looked different with **Devil Sight** than normal things.

"**Identify**." Tharja said disinterestedly, leaning over him, "It's a necklace that let's your breath underwater. The rings are normal. Can we go now?"

"Yes dear." He said with a chuckle collecting the items and slipping them into his pouch.

She kicked him in the leg, "Don't."

Snickering he followed her out of the cave, onto the next one!

**End**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 7**

**Wizard**

**Strength: 12 Dexterity: 23**

**Constitution: 16 Intelligence: 100**

**Wisdom: 89 Luck: 15]**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

**Hope you enjoyed, Tharja is kind of an odd duck when it comes to writing her. So hopefully I did a decent job of it.**

**Lemme know what you thought, I'm still taking suggestions for the other party member, as Solaire of Astora wouldn't have fit well, without ruining his sunny self in some way or another.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	18. Chapter 18

**Firstly, the internet has been out since the 11th so forgive lack of updates.**

**Secondly, Guest boys, you can't just suggest nothing and then complain when a decision is made, that's now how this works. If you've gotten to the story after that point then complaining about it is also pointless, because we already passed it.**

**As for Noire, we'll see. **

**I'm still trying to think of someone who's, interesting enough to write about and a close combat fighter. 'Cus we got an archer, we got a mage, we need a fighter and healer. **

**The healer is still a maybe because I wanted to be more focused around a three man group, but doing a no heal run is a bad move.**

**Genuinely though this is a waking nightmare I can't think of anyone. Most of the ones I can think of are already centre stage in their respective media.**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 7**

**Wizard 7**

**Strength: 12 Dexterity: 23**

**Constitution: 16 Intelligence: 100**

**Wisdom: 89 Luck: 15]**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

Tharja lay in her room, contently rousing from her sleep.

A plush bed beneath her and soft pillows, a cover that wasn't too warm, nor too cold. It was a perfect rest, something she'd not had in quite some time…

Or ever, just as soon as the thought finished she realised that sad fact.

This place, Belzerg, was strange to her. The people were either world-weary or naive, most had quite potent convictions and goals, whilst others would remain static and weak.

Coming from a land of heroes and warlords it was quite a culture shock.

She couldn't figure out her companion either, he was a man of too many faces, he was a jester, a chivalrous knight, a cunning rogue, a sinister deviant and yet it all formed into a somewhat decent man.

He held no candle to Robin, but at the same time, Zachary had not dragged his hand into her chest and ripped out her still beating heart, only to leave her with nothing and no-one.

A familiar bitterness crept into her stomach, she knew not how to fix it but she knew it well enough to live with it.

A sombre note came to her when she thought of the adult daughter she left behind, whilst all of Noire's friends were assuredly born, the poor girl had come to the conclusion that she was a foriegn entity in the world.

The girl from the future that didn't exist.

It hurt Tharja in a way she couldn't comprehend to see her 'daughter' like that.

She left her bed, she slept naked and was grateful that her housemate keyed her locking wards to her, so he couldn't sneak in on her. She added several more of her own, should he attempt to enter her room he would be blasted with a torrent of flames, which would burn the curtains, and then he would have to put up with the sunlight.

It was an acceptable compromise in the name of privacy.

She garbed herself different, wearing a low-cut, black robe that had a split down each side to show off her legs, her feet would be protected by simple black shoes with a **Muffle** enchantment on them, courtesy of the impressive dead woman, Wiz.

Her robe had an innate casting of **Mage Armour** that would protect her from physical attacks, and was powered by ambient magic, technically so long someone was casting spells near her it would remain stable.

She placed on her circlet to keep her hair out of her eyes, to others it may not look like it worked, but as someone who was well experienced with hiding behind their hair, Tharja could see well enough.

"Lookin' good." Greeted the man on the couch, Tharja looked at him, his semi-vacant green eyes not really focused on anything as he stared off into the middle-distance.

"Your friends should keep their eyes to themselves now." Tharja said in place of a response to his praise.

"Not really my friends, don't have any here." He said again, not entirely focused.

"What are you doing?" She asked, annoyed at his distracted tone.

He seemed to bolt for a moment before focusing on her, "Sorry about that, sort of just… go into a trance instead of sleep. Must've zoned out."

"Mhm." Vocalised the Dark Mage, "I want to get to work, so come. We're going to eat - or I am - and then we're going to kill more monsters."

Zachary nodded, "Gimmie a few."

Tharja was going to ask 'A few of what?' but he left the couch and went up stairs into his room.

'_That man…_' She thought ruefully, hearing the sound of shuffling cloth and a blast of cold air followed by a splash of water and then flames she saw him come back down.

Gone were his loose fitting pants and v cut top, he stood clad in dark purple leathers with streaks of black, over which was a chest piece of white plated metal and matching boots, one of his arm wreathed in the golden gauntlet that was secretly a bow.

The other forearm bore a mere black leather glove that rose to his elbow, strapped to his thigh was a long knife, and a dark tome was tied to his hip by a black, spiked chain.

"What happened to your hair?" She asked, confused greatly.

He'd, what-cut his hair in the short amount of time? It was short, much shorter than the long mop that previously sat on his scalp, his hair was a dark, blond colour. It's shortness allowed more of his face to show through.

'_He's not physically repulsive, I suppose_.' He might do for a rebound man? Some of the women in the army had suggested such to her, if Robin was committed to Cordellia so, then she could at least use another man to make her feel better, yes?

No.

Nothing could repair the rift in her chest.

And she was no mere slattern that she would muddy her sheets with a man she had no intention of keeping.

"Magic." Zachary said easily enough, "Had long hair for a while. Decided a change was needed. I also get to see if my hair will grow back or not."

The casual manner with which he flipped a semi-transparent dagger as he said this confused Tharja somewhat, like he was hinting at it being something worth note but to her she saw only more of his face as a result of this change.

It was a nice enough face, she supposed. Good jawline, strong cheekbones.

Aesthetically pleasing.

**Axel Guild**

Zachary stood at the quest board, rubbing his chin in thought. Tharja had already taken a few simpler quests and set out on her own.

Sidling up next to him was the golden vanguard herself, "Good morning, Darkness."

"Good morning, Zachary." Greeted the blonde with a bright smile on her lovely face, "How does the day find you?"

"It's going well so far, I'm just struggling somewhat. Deciding what quest to take…" He admitted distantly.

Darkness copied his stance and looked at the board as well.

'_What in god's name is with this girls genes? Is her mother also suffering constant back bains?_' The sheer size of her breasts boggled his mind.

It was one of the few times he'd seen Darkness out of her armour, she wore some skin tight black bodysuit beneath her armour that… just wow.

'_I'm as arse man and even I'd change my lifestyle for those._'

"Perhaps you'd care to join me today? I'm going to the smith to commission new armour." Darkness said, a somewhat bashful look on her face.

"What happened to it?" Zachary asked, amusement in his voice.

Darkness immediately flushed, and grinned broadly, "I was accosted by a trio of savage bandits, they slashed and hammered away at me, my armour is admittedly more fragile than I am so I was sundered… piece by piece…"

Zachary blinked, "What happened after that?"

"They ran away for some reason, I've not seen them since."

'_Jesus and the Saints, this girl is one step away from some serious shit happening to her._' An odd protectiveness sprouted in his chest, "Right, well let's go get you some armour."

"Oh marvelous." She said with a less perverted grin.

"And then we're going to get it enchanted, because if it breaks easier than you do it's a problem." The man said, crossing his arms. "And I don't care how poorly you are at swinging a sword, you're going to come on a few quests with me to get points, and you're going to put it into swordsmanship. Is that clear?"

Though cherry red, Darkness managed a small defiance as the taller of the two leant down and closer to her, the shadows within his hood keeping all but those sinister red eyes away from her sight, "Bu-but if I waste points in offence how will I protect my comrades?"

Slamming a hand against the wall beside her head and leaning into whisper in her ear, he said, "I said, is that clear?"

Darkness suddenly felt very hot and bothered, but nodded quickly.

Just as soon as he gave her this glimpse of intensity he retreated and nodded, "Good, now let's go."

At the Problem Children table, Kazuma, Megumin and Aqua all gaped in shock.

Megumin was amazed that he managed to get through to that ox-headed woman, though if he tried something similar with her, to steer her away from explosions he'd have another thing coming!

Aqua was amazed that the blonde Crusader would even go near the undead man anymore after he drank from her, even if the idiot was into it.

Kazuma- let's not talk about what Kazuma was thinking.

**Axel Market District**

"... I can get the armour done within a few days, this some pretty good stuff… where'd you get it?" The smith asked, a great bear of a man. With arms thick like oak brances, and skin tanned and seared from the forge.

His head was completely hairless showing off a shining scalp, and his bright orange eyes looked like burning embers.

"Wiz's shop, apparently they're enchanted ingots, but can only be used by a smith born in August. I guess we got lucky." Zachary informed, looking over the luminous ingots that shimmered in the low light of the smithy.

Dante - the smith - barked out a laugh and shook his head, "That girl's a real special character."

"That's certainly one way of putting it." Agreed the Beastmaster, he turned to the wall, "She'll also need a sword-and-board, can you manage a shield out of what's here or nah?"

"Nothing large enough to matter." Admitted the smith, "I've got some good stuff though, her current sword is decent enough, noble make to be sure."

Lalatina didn't like that her sword of all things outed her as a noble, she'd much rather do so on her own terms, but grudgingly admitted that her fellow adventurer had a point, a shield was a wall she could put between her and her comrades.

She didn't like that she had to get better with her sword though, she was much better at soaking damage than dealing it.

"What's wrong grumpy-cat?" Zachary asked, leaning down and smiling at her behind his hood, Darkness huffed and ignored him, "Oh now, is someone mad that I made valid points?"

"Silence." She muttered, though her words bore no real rancor.

The smith snorted and gestured to the door, "I'll send a runner to the guild when it's done."

"Thank you, Dante." Zachary said.

"Thank you very much Master Smith." Lalatina said with a slight bow, even with attitude she still had manners to adhere to.

As they stepped outside Zachary glanced down at her and chuckled, she was trying very hard to keep an angry look, "Lunch then? I think I found a decent place."

"It's not that Cafe that Kazuma spoke of, is it..?" Darkness said with a peculiar look he couldn't really place, "I don't… think I'd be comfortable at such a place."

"No, it's not _That_ Cafe. It's an inn near the wall, they have a good vibe."

**End**

**Shorter chapter, I know.**

**I'm gonna take a few days to mull over who I wanna add to the story, I could just make it a Fire Emblem Crossover and use another FE character but I'm not sure if that would hurt or help the story, tbh.**

**Regardless, I'll take step back for a bit and think about it.**

**I'll be back within a week or so, even if I've not figured it out.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Saeko Busujima. **

**Ya boi who suggested it is a fucking godsent, thanks a bunch for suggesting our fighter Krennnin.**

**Also got a couple more story beats for down the road, so look forward to that good stuff.**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 16**

**Wizard 10/Necromancer/6**

**Strength: 14 Dexterity: 29**

**Constitution: 20 Intelligence: 117**

**Wisdom: 106 Luck: 15]**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 40**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 168 Dexterity: 219**

**Constitution: 151 Intelligence: 69**

**Wisdom: 78 Luck: 105]**

Tracking down a duo of Outlaw Adventurers wasn't glorious work, nor was it particularly respected, but those that went rogue and took to harming the country instead of helping it often led to such quests being posted.

The hunt had led him several days out of Axel by foot, though with the **Fly** spell he managed to zip about like a plane and not have to worry about something as trivial as distance.

He felt like he underutilised the skill really, but it did trivialise travel when all of his spells used Thori'dal as a catalyst, which had infinite energy, thereby meaning he never ran out of mana unless using internal spells like his various shots.

The two that were his quarry were Issav the Bear and Ustag the Corpse. A Druid and Necromancer duo that had managed to gain some notoriety by defecting to assist the Demon King's armies in the southern Belzerg, towards the border between it and the elven nations.

He was quite happy to get a decent distance away from Axel, it allowed him to appreciate the real affect that the Demon King had on the world.

Axel was a true gem given that it was barely ever in any true danger, the monsters were generally good for low level adventurers and life was quiet and peaceful.

Away from Axel however, actual demons roamed the countryside in mobs, monsters were rampant, and the - towards the south at least - it was easy to see how infested the Giant Demon Fuck had made the world.

Issav had taken the form of a One-Shot Bear to kill off his hunter, whilst Ustag had begun the incantation to raise a Mummy Lord, an undead that had the power to summon several undead on its own.

It was a good way to put more bodies between the hunter and his prey.

However, Tharja had also come, and had taken to Counter-spelling the poor bastard.

The Dark Mage had unleashed a **Rotting Hex** on him, reducing all of physical stats to -1 and his mental stats to 0. It had effectively turned him into a floppy vegetable, and she was quite pleased with herself for developing the spell.

However, it was a channeled ability, so required her attention, when the Half-Formed Mummy Lord summoned several skeleton archers to attack the woman she had to move and interrupt her spell.

Zachary had thrown out an **Ice-Trap** behind him before flipping into the air and landing several feet away from it, Issav ran into it without noticing and his entire body was snared in a massive blossom of ice.

Bobbing his head a beat only he could hear Zachary jostled about as he lined up a shot, a Hunter's Mark firmly floating atop the head of the trapped One-Shot Bear, a great monolith of a creature with short spikes up its arms and heavy armour across its back, one the sides of its head at the edge of its mouth were axe heads.

"You know my love goes on forever and ever and ever and ever~." He murmured as he bobbed his head, spun on his heel and drew back as massive **Arcane Shot** that illuminated the area in a thick wave of purple energy that rapidly condensed down into the shot and fired off like a firework, upon impact it shot right through the **Ice-Trap**ped bear and shattered it like glass.

"Fucking love Mystery Skulls." He said with a smile on his face, clicking his heels a Lyonel Shade appeared at his side, as he sent it to deal with the Sylvans that had spawned after the druids death.

Sylvans were trees that picked up natural magic and formed some kind of consciousness, and were generally super pissy.

Tharja channeled mana through her staff and released a powerful **Arcane Explosion** that detonated, flushing the archers with energy and disrupting the magic keeping them together, she used the ambient magic in the air and moved her wrist like she was flicking whip, the air suddenly set aflame and she threw a wall of fire at the Mummy Lord.

The creature was quickly burnt up, but Ustag wouldn't take it lying down, still coming out of the after effects of the curse he slammed his staff into the ground and activated **Maximise Magic** before throwing an enormous **Shadow Spear** at the dark haired wizard.

Tharja hissed angrily and erected a **Shield** spell to deflect the massive lance of black magic, with the power of her staff it worked well enough, a near perfect redirect, but she shuddered at the intensity of the spell.

Tharja's eyes burned with magic as a plegian curse left her lips, a wave of purple magic rose off her as an old skill activated, **Vengeance** burned across her like a roaring flame, "You're already dead!"

A massive surge of dark magic flashed through her staff before surging forward like the maw of an angry god, the tide crashed against Ustag who attempted to form his own **Shield** only for it to fracture and shatter.

He was swept away in the black tide of Tharja's magic.

Zachary appeared in a swirl of mist beside her, clapping and grinning. "That was awesome."

"I'm going to see if his bones are still there." Said the budding Necromancer, snickering to herself.

"Yeah, good luck with that… a good few hundred metres of the forest are missing but I'm sure his bones will be there." Cracking a grin he lifted a few feet into the air and looking over the destruction the woman had caused.

"Ah, so awesome!"

* * *

It was a few days later when Zachary found himself cornered by his housemate, "What's your relationship with the blonde bimbo?"

"She's a friend…?"

It was the early evening, probably around 7 O'clock or so, when Tharja had approached him with that question, and he was quite confused with it.

"Then why did I hear her going on and on about enjoying how you were 'giving it to her rough in the field'. Are you some kind of man-whore?" She asked, a smirk on her lips.

Instead of spluttering like other men she'd met he burst out laughing, which took away the fun somewhat.

He calmed and brought it down from a roar to a snicker, "Okay, so Darkness is probably the biggest kinklord I've ever met, she treats basically everything as a scenario to get her off. She can't hit the broadside of a fuckin' barn though, so I was basically forcing hand-eye-coordination into her."

"How does this translate to what she said?" Tharja asked, puzzled.

"Because unlike most other things around here, I'm strong enough to actually hurt her near-impenetrable defence. Everytime she missed a simple swing I'd smack her with a stick." He snorted and broke into another fit of giggles, "She missed so many fucking times!"

"Well, that's less interesting than I was hoping." Tharja admitted, sitting down across from him at their circular table, placing the book she always carried with her down.

"Sorry, I'll be sure to get into juicies scenarios to appease your need to gossip." He teased making her arch somewhat.

"I do not, gossip."

"No? So you were just worried for my moral state then? Maybe you're motherly after all." He sniped, getting a growl in return.

"You're an impossible man." She sneered.

"Actually I'm Zac, common mistake, don't fret." Tharja threw her arms up and almost screamed in frustration at the man's teasing.

Zac just started laughing once more, she gave up and kicked his leg.

His laughter sputtered and he relaxed, "Alright, what's up? You can't have really been that invested in my sex life, surely?"

Tharja looked like she was on the back foot and ready to flee to the door, "I was… trying to do what I'd seen people doing to relate with one another, when I was with the Shepherds I'd see people teasing or scorning each other over who warmed their bed…"

"So this was your hamfisted attempt at bonding with me?" He asked curiously, getting a growl in return, "Hey now, don't get all grumpy with me. I appreciate the effort. But I've seen how some of your comrades spoke to one another, Chrom and Sumia's whole relationship was built on pies."

"And?" Tharja asked, needing to know where he was going.

Closing his own tome he smiled at the woman with the emotional maturity of a girl, "You don't have to act like someone else to get my attention, Tharja. You live in my house, kill monsters with me, and I'd like to think we were at least friendly with one another. You've already got my attention. Just be you, boo."

He added to this by poking her nose making it wrinkle reflexively, the amused Hunter sunk back into his chair and quietly returned to his book, "So, what made you wish for us to bond more?"

Tharja looked like she was going to elaborate but frowned and shook her head, "My reasons are my own.

She stood up and left the house, "I'm going to go and kill some more things."

"Stay safe and use the Hearthstone if you get in over your head." She nodded without looking back and left the house.

**Tharja Support - C**

* * *

Zachary looked around the void once more as he smiled as Eris appeared, looking a little shaken.

"Hard day at the office?" He - for the first time in what felt like a long while - pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit it with a small flame on his thumb.

Eris nodded, "I recently got a new domain opened up to me, it's… not exactly the nicest."

"Lay it on me." Offered the Hero Candidate, leaning back into his chair.

"Zombies… so many zombies." Eris shivered in disgust, "Most of my domains are Japanese, your version of Australia being an exception, along with Tharja's world. But… well seeing infected humans rip each other apart, and watching the other ones betray and manipulate each other is… incredibly disturbing."

"Scenarios like that can bring out the best and worst in people, just depends on who you're dealing with…" He admitted, scratching his coarse chin in thought whilst taking a deep breath, as he breathed out a billowing cloud came out of his nostrils.

"Does that even do anything for you now?" Eris asked curiously.

"Not anymore." He admitted coldly, but a smile on his face, "Though I don't mind it."

"Whatever makes you happy." Eris said, a fond smile one her own face, making him blink somewhat as he stumbled somewhat at that.

Recovering he shook himself out a bit, standing and striding across the void to lean against her goddess throne, "So, who am I gonna be looking after now?"

"Later on, I might be sending a few more unfortunate souls from Tharja's world, but at the moment I'll be sending a young woman from the world of… the infected."

"Marvelous." Grouched Zac, rubbing his short, curly hair and shaking his head.

A violet card formed before him, the stained glass style image depicting a young woman with purple hair and a sword.

"Ah great… migraines." He tossed his half-finished durry into the void with a flick of his finger and grabbed the card, his mind flashing white hot at the sensation of the information.

Modern Japan. School. _Them Everywhere-_Takashi-_I have to keep them Safe_-Takagi-_The exhilaration! It shames me!_ Gnashing teeth, ripping flesh-Betrayal by a Teacher, safety, warmth-

Zachary gasped like he had been rising from water, his head swiming, "Fuck!"

Eris held his arm as he leaned heavily against her throne, his legs buckling a little as he fell into a crouch, "Mercy… that's some hardcore shit."

"We're much of the same mind, on that matter." Eris said with a small chuckle.

"Why was there so much magical tit action though? Takashi shot a bullet, perfectly through her tits! And groped her, to snap her out of something? Why was-I rrggg! I cannot even." Grumbled the Waller with a shake of his head.

Eris giggled to herself, "Her memories make it seem light, I assure you."

"Fucking ay…" Grumbled the Hunter with a shiver, letting the memories wash away into the back of his mind.

Saeko Busujima, a young woman of a strict household that remained true to the tradition of the samurai. She had a very old-school kind of mindset, she was a good sort. Strong willed and powerful, a heart that was worth pursuing.

Though she also had a serious sadist streak. So, ya know, to each is own.

The gorgeous young woman appeared from a shaft of light, long purple hair with a somewhat triangular fringe that _just_ touched her nose, icy blue eyes that pulled you in with the passive intensity they held, and a figure that would send most men into full primate mode.

She wore an altered school uniform, with white and green being the primary colours, she had long stockings on and a visible garter from the small, split skirt she sported.

Her eyes regained focus as she looked up at Eris and the little devil she had at her side.

Saeko blinked owlishly before looking around.

"I had the same reaction, don't worry." Assured the Hunter with a grin.

Eris smiled gently, "Welcome, Saeko Busujima, to the afterlife. I am Eris, the Goddess of Fortune. You have died a heroes death, so you've been given that chance to move onto the afterlife proper, and reside in heaven in eternal bliss. Conversely you may return to your world in the reincarnation cycle, _or_ you could move onto another world in need of heroes."

"Ah… may I know how I died?" Saeko asked gently, trying to wrap her head around it all.

"Takashi and Alice were about to be overrun, but you managed to protect them. One of Them managed to tear at your Achilles tendon though, you bled out. Don't worry, they didn't let you turn." Zachary said with a small smile.

Saeko looked down, looking somewhat serene as she bore a content smile of her own, "That is good to know. If I may know, I'd like to know more about my options."

Eris looked to Zachary, a small smile on her face, "You can join this one here, in a country called Belzerg. From your perspective it would be somewhat in the middle-ages, though magic has given it more modern conveniences. Belzerg faces the Demon King and his armies, the gods and goddesses of the realm are able to pull others that have died in their own worlds into it to act as Hero-Candidates, the ones who manage to slay the Demon King are granted a divine wish, literally anything you can think of."

"You also get a completely broken artefact." Zac said with a grin, presenting Thori'dal, the wings sliding out as he flicked his wrist, "I chose a magic bow that produces its' own ammunition and has infinite magic reserves."

"The world itself operates in a somewhat gamified sense. As heroes you are able to level up and acquire skills, much like playing many fantasy games. Though the world, and the people are very much real. As are the monsters threatening them." Eris concluded, Saeko nodded in understanding.

"Alternatively, there's reincarnation. Pretty simple sort of idea, though you don't get to keep your memories, and return to the world you just left." Zac informed, returning his weapon to its resting state.

"Not many chose reincarnation." Admitted Eris, "Finally there is to move onto heaven. As a person with a very positive karmic balance you are eligible to enjoy eternal bliss, and have earnt it through your actions."

Saeko chuckled in a self-deprecating manner, "I'd hardly agree with that."

"Who we are on the inside is half of the self, the other half is what we do. Just because you enjoy the thrill of the fight, doesn't make you a bad person." Zachary comisierated, "Since I went to Belzerg I learnt a lot about myself, that being one of them."

"Oh really? Do you assist gods very often, Mr. Mysterious?" Teased the purple haired young woman.

With green eyes that twinkled with his broad smile, "Zachary Waller, my dear. At your service."

"Saeko Busujima, a pleasure." She offered a slight dip of her head, which he reciprocated.

"So, the choice is yours, my dear. What will you do?" Eris prodded gently.

Saeko considered it for a moment before another smile tugged at her lips, "I'd like to help more people, I see nothing wrong with pursuing this path. I'll be in your care, Mr. Waller."

"Just Zachary, please." Insisted the blond man.

"Then you may call me, Saeko." She offered in return, her eyes having a small twinkle of their own.

A small flash of light signaled the summoning of the Book of Artefacts, "Within this book are several hundred items you may choose, take your time. If you have any questions, I'm sure Zachary wouldn't mind answering your questions."

"She's got god stuff to do, or she'd sit here with ya." Assured Zac as he walked over to stand aside Saeko, kneeling down next to her as she opened the book.

"Do you have any suggestions?" The woman asked, looking into his green eyes, they had a certain magnetism to them.

"You're a swordsman, I'd suggest something down that road... " He thought about it for a moment before grinning, looking to the book he said, "Masamune."

The pages glowed and rapidly flipped before landing on an elegant O-Katana with a brilliant silver colour scabbard with a golden cap on the end, and a lotus flower as the guard, the hilt was a dark blue cloth wrapped lovingly around the handle with another golden cap at the pommel.

The blade had the ability to enhance the users strength to stupid degrees, like mountain splitting levels. It also took any damage it caused and used it to heal the wielder. It did extra damage against anything with an evil alignment.

"My word…" She said, looking at the weapon with amazement.

"That'll do it." Zachary said with a chuckle, standing up and leaning over so his chin was on her shoulder, "It get's better by the way, you get to choose a blessing."

Saeko laughed to herself, truly she'd found a kindred spirit it seemed.

**End**

**It's 3 am. I'm gonna sleep.**

**I finished this because I couldn't get it out of my head, sorry if it seems a little rushed.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	20. Chapter 20

**Minor Retcons for things the show doesn't share.**

**Tried to get Saeko down pat, it's been a bit since I watched HOTD but most of her character revolves around some pretty simple stuff.**

**[Saeko Busujima Lv. 0/100**

**Strength: 25 Dexterity: 29**

**Constitution: 20 Intelligence: 20**

**Wisdom: 15 Luck: 8]**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 24/100**

**Wizard 10/Necromancer10/Arch-Wizard 4**

**Strength: 16 Dexterity: 32**

**Constitution: 25 Intelligence: 137**

**Wisdom: 126 Luck: 15]**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 43/100**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 171 Dexterity: 225**

**Constitution: 155 Intelligence: 71**

**Wisdom: 80 Luck: 110]**

Saeko looked around in wonder at the lush green hills and the beautiful blue sky, the lack of rotting flesh making the air smell foul.

Birds! They had birds!

Standing beside her Zachary - with his hood up - smiled warmly, and gently grabbed her shoulder, drawing her attention, he pointed towards the giant toads hopping around contently.

She gasped, placing a hand over her heart.

"I had the same reaction." Admitted the man with a chuckle, "Come on, I'll get you registered at the guild and then we'll get you some new clothes, a good feed and a long bath. I can only imagine what you've been through."

"That's very kind of you, I… appreciate it greatly. You do yourself credit." Saeko said, walking in step with him, holding her newly acquired artefact in one hand.

One would take note of the small blue studs in her ears, one in each lobe, they were the physical representation of her boon, **The Goddesses Eye** it gave Saeko the ability to tell when people were lying to her, as she could literally see lies.

It spoke volumes of her past that she felt so compelled to acquire such a gift, but it made her happy enough.

Saeko strode with an unearthly grace, each step held an almost feline quality to it. Her eyes examined all things around her, with a mixture of warmth and wonder, but undercut by a bitter paranoia that would doubtlessly never leave her.

Pulling himself back to reality he waved her off, "All my mother's work, trust me."

Saeko found interest in that, a relatively normal comment to be sure, "You father wasn't around?"

Zachary shook his head, "Not in that sense, he was a tradesmen. He worked long hours and when he got home he would usually try to relax and unwind by looking after his plants or watching TV, I didn't really get to know my dad properly until I was around 16. We were just too different."

Considering this the Japanese woman smiled a little, "My family is very traditional, I learnt from my father and my grandfather about many things, mostly swordsmanship but they kept me in line with a firm hand in ethics and morals."

"The image of little Saeko listening to an old man in robes in a dojo comes to mind." Zachary admitted with a grin, Saeko laughed and nodded.

"Quite accurate." Her smile lost itself somewhat as she remembered, "I hope my father is well. Before the outbreak he traveled abroad, I can only imagine what it was like elsewhere…"

Zachary rubbed his chin in thought, "Given population density in Japan I'd honestly say you might have seen the worst of it. Places like America are heavily populated sure, but every Tom, Dick and Harry is packing. Places in Europe are sort of dependant on the weather, with how often it apparently rains in places like England and Scotland the zombies probably had more trouble getting around, if it managed to get that far…"

Saeko listened to his words, oddly enough it gave her a slight hope.

"...Australia is probably fine, to be honest. Most of the population lives on the coastlines and it takes hours to get anywhere by car, let alone by shambling walk. With the extreme heat and cold contrast throughout the year I can't imagine the bastards lasting long."

"You seem to have thought about this quite a bit." Observed the purple haired young woman keenly.

"When I was younger a friend and I would talk about your exact situation. We had several plans for different places, it was a habit I never really lost track of." His - at that moment - red eyes darkened with sorrow, "But I don't think anyone could really appreciate the struggle it took… you're an incredible woman, Saeko."

Saeko was somewhat taken aback by the sincerity in his voice and felt a slight wobble in her stance as she tried to choke down some of the things she had to do to survive.

Patting her on the back Zachary nodded, "Come on we'll get you some R&R."

* * *

Tharja returned the house and placed her cloak on the coat rack, sighing gently to herself she placed her staff in her room and looked around for a moment.

Where was her companion?

Probably out getting himself fed, she noticed he usually slinked off around the same time each day to feed his bloodthirst.

Tharja entertained the idea of making herself something to eat but decided against it, instead she removed her travel bag and long black robe, switching to something lighter.

She'd take some money and go to the baths, to treat herself to their many delights. Plegia was a wretched desert and she _adored_ Ylissean bath houses.

It was something she'd found when the army had gone through one of the Outrealm Gates to some odd subrealm that was part beach resort and part spa retreat. Of course monsters infested it in some way or another, but once they'd been taken care of it was a rather novel experience.

It was one of the few memories she could really treasure, whilst Anna had made a mockery of her with various lascivious attires, and her trickery. Tharja did actually enjoy the time spent in those places.

Besides it was amusing to see how other women tried to compare themselves to her, Tharja had been told many times by those in the army that she had substantial physical appeal.

It was a shame none of them had the stones to make anything but idle comments about her body, because she knew they feared her as a person.

It was much the same in Belzerg, she'd noticed. People found her being a Necromancer incredibly distasteful. But generally accepted it so long as she didn't go about using it to harm anyone that wasn't the Demon King's forces.

This whole 'system' confused her.

She could only take 5 points in Necromancer unless she was an undead, and then it would rise to 10. The 'maximum' level was 100 apparently but that was rare to see outside of the frontier skirmishes.

But why?

Why would 'Advanced Classes' have certain caps on them, the human body was made to break limits. And whoever constructed the system apparently didn't know that.

"It's irksome." Tharja muttered into her book, she'd read for a while before getting herself fed and watered.

* * *

Zac sat comfortably in the bath water, the moonlight hanging low but enough that he could reveal himself properly without exploding into fire.

'_I suppose I should stop playing about and actually make moves against the Demon King, I've been playing about in Axel for too long… I'll just have to wait until Saeko is strong enough to leave. Her weapon makes her dangerous as fuck, but without any defensive abilities, or even some levels, she'll be fodder._' He reflected quietly, across the divide was Saeko, enjoying getting clean properly for the first time in a while, no doubt.

'_Between myself, Tharja and Saeko we've got a lot of bases covered. Our artefacts are fucking busted, so why do I feel so… afraid to step away from Axel?_' He scratched his head thinking about this, there was a very real weight in his stomach about going out into the much more dangerous world.

'_It's probably because I'm just a massive bitch who's very afraid of failure._' Mused the young man, looking upward he shook his head.

"Yep. That's it." He sunk into the pool and grumbled.

"Whatever… I'll do it either way." Zac grimaced, "Then I've gotta see what's goin' on with the elves. If they aren't malicious dicks and are just Prothean archetypes then I'll just leave them be."

"'Oh but Zac what do you mean by Prothean Archetypes?' Well that's a very good question audience in my head, an old race that sits in the background and that has minimal contact with the story, only there flesh out the world. If they are that and don't _really_ care about what happens to the rest of the continent, then I'll just leave it be."

His parents would say that he's never been good with change, and that'd be all around correct. He wasn't in the minority, a lot of people got comfortable and all but tore you apart if you attempted to fuck with that.

T'was human nature after all.

Humans are creatures of comfort.

Elbowing up somewhat Zac sighed, "Gods above, trying to decide the fate of a continent when did that become something I thought about?"

"Probably the same time you died." Kazuma's voice said as he strode into the bath.

"Sup dingus." Greeted the blond Hero-Candidate, turning properly Zac barked out a laugh, "Sweet lord what happened to you!?"

He was covered in scratch marks and slime.

"Don't go into tombs with a goddess… they attract undead like flies and honey." Kazuma said with a grimace, sitting on a small wooden stool in the washing pool that was next to the sitting pool, in the centre of it was a mind-trapped slime that would eat the waste in the water.

"People keep telling me that, but I'm Undead, and I don't really give to shits about your retarded party member." Zachary informed him, getting a grunt from the NEET.

"Probably because you're a high functioning dead guy, where the others are mostly about as brain dead as Aqua… maybe they want to bond over their mutual retardation." Kazuma sneered.

"Jesus, what crawled up you and died?" Asked the Vampire with a frown.

"Aqua pulled the same thing on me that she and Megumin did to you, **Turn Undead**'d the entire horde right back at me, the only reason I got out alive was because of Darkness." Rumbled Kazuma.

"Dunno why you keep her around man, seems to do more damage than she heals." Zachary commented, idly he could hear Saeko on the other side, moving closer towards the fence.

* * *

Saeko listened in carefully as the door to her side opened, out stepped a woman with long black hair and fair skin, her iron coloured eyes seemed to lock onto her immediately.

"You must be new." Commented the woman, a grumble in her voice.

"Saeko Busujima, yes. Recently… put here." She said quietly.

"Tharja. I suppose you got picked up by the Goddess and plopped into _his_ lap." She gestured with her head to the fence to show who she was talking about.

"Yes. I've been given a second chance and I will use it to my best ability." Saeko said simply, "If helping him is the best way to do that, I'll do what it takes."

"How very dutiful of you." Tharja said with a smirk on her face.

"It's how I was raised." Admitted the purple haired young woman with a nod, "Care to join me?"

"That was the idea yeah."

"So what's your deal?" Tharja asked offhandedly.

"My world became overrun with... people who came back to life, but they were different... they ate each other and even a bite could turn you into one of them." Saeko tried to convey it as best she could but it was slightly harder than she'd thought.

"Undead. Right." The Dark Mage nodded, "Interesting that it spread through bites though, most involve curses of some kind."

"You've encountered them too?" Asked the Swordswoman.

"An approximation of them, yes." Tharja sunk into the pool and sighed, "I dealt with things called Risen, monsters that shambled like the undead. And were about as limitless, apparently in some dark future I and all my peers died to them."

"Apparently?" Saeko asked curiously.

Tharja waved her off, trying to keep some air of mystique, "Another time, so... what did you bring down with you?"

"A sword that seems beyond reason." Admitted the purple haired young woman with a slightly amused smile on her lips.

Tharja nodded, "They are quire mystifying. Makes me curious how the gods can make these amazing things and yet still let something like that King exist."

"It does raise a few interesting questions." Saeko admitted.

"I'm of the mind that there's more at play here... I just haven't figured out what yet."

"Perhaps, if we make real progress... we'll find out more."

Tharja smiled, she liked the new one.

* * *

Kazuma looked at his fellow and grimaced, "What's the deal with you?"

"What do you mean?" Zachary asked curiously.

"You're like a twister, just appearing out of nowhere and shaking things up, but now you've fallen into this pattern. All that talk about destroying the Demon King, you don't seem to be doing much with that idea." The younger male commented with a solid stare.

Zachary frowned, "I'm aware that I've gotten static."

"So what are you gonna do? Stick around here with the rest of the idiots, or move on?" Grilled Kazuma, "Because I might be fucked, but you've actually got a competent party member, who is also a Hero-Candidate, between the two of you you could probably take him out now."

"Let's not get too hasty there." Zachary said with two hands up, "I get that I've got the better deal but instead of killing myself against the King I'd rather at least get to level cap."

"There's a level cap?" Questioned the younger man with a confused look.

"Yeah, but it only really let's you know that after you've gotten a certain amount of experience. And even then it's not exactly obvious." Commented the older of the two, Zac frowned, "If I knew I'd only get 100 levels, I'd have not bothered with magical classes and just funneled everything into archery."

"Well at least _I _know now… yet another thing that stupid goddess didn't tell me."

Zac shrugged helplessly, "Life is a path of self-discovery."

"Sounds like bullshit."

"That's because life is bullshit, my guy."

"Can't just let me have the last word can you?" Kazuma asked with a sneer.

"Nope." Responded the Hunter with a grin.

**End**

**I'm sick again boys, which is slightly infuriating. **

**Lemme know whatcha think and all that jazz.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Starting to deviate into original territory, so hopefully ya bois like it.**

**It's raining in my desert habitat as I write this, it's awesome.**

**03/08/19 - Finished this up a few days later, I've been pretty distracted.**

**[Saeko Busujima Lv. 0/100**

**Strength: 25 Dexterity: 29**

**Constitution: 20 Intelligence: 20**

**Wisdom: 15 Luck: 8]**

**[Tharja of Plegia Lv. 24/100**

**Wizard 10/Necromancer10/Arch-Wizard 4**

**Strength: 16 Dexterity: 32**

**Constitution: 25 Intelligence: 137**

**Wisdom: 126 Luck: 15]**

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 43/100**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 171 Dexterity: 225**

**Constitution: 155 Intelligence: 71**

**Wisdom: 80 Luck: 110]**

The Adventurers guild was sent a rather disturbing message, apparently one of the northern towns, Lunasvale had seemingly gone dark. Almost literally, as the earth around the small northern town had been reported to have started to blacken spread a vile toxin into the air.

The druids of the guild had reported that the Sylvans of the area had been corrupted, even their children, the Wood Woads - smaller sylvans that were more akin to pygmy warriors - had started attacking anything alive that wasn't themselves.

It was disturbing to say the least.

Axel wasn't sent a recon quest, it was sent an order of avoidance.

Of course most of the guild was very happy with that idea, seeing as Lunasvale was deep in monster territory, sure the people there were badasses but they weren't about to get themselves killed weeks away from the usual haunt.

Zachary was more than willing to go and scope it out, mostly because he literally couldn't be seen if he didn't want to be.

He grabbed three quests from the board and handed them to Saeko, "I'm gonna head out on my own for a bit, I might be like a week or so, depending on how much shit is going down in this village, but I want you and Tharja to work together to get yourself some exp."

"Are you sure it's wise to go out on your own?" Saeko asked curiously, she was dressed in dark leathers over a pale grey tunic, long riding boots covered her from knee to toe and heavy arm guards protected her forearms.

"I am, between the skills I've picked up and the boon I got, I'm pretty much undetectable, it'll be easy to get in and out." Assured the man with a smile, Saeko nodded easily enough.

"If you think it's best I'll do as you ask. I suppose it will give me time to adjust properly to this weapon." She admitted almost grudgingly.

Zachary grinned beneath his hood, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Tharja's spells disorient her targets, so you're gonna have a pretty easy run of it to begin with. Just make sure you take potions with you. If you have any questions about the system, ask Luna at the front desk, or one of the others. They'll help you out."

Saeko returned the smile, "I'll be careful."

He chuckled and nodded, "Picked up the ol' subtext eh? Well I'll be back in a while."

He looked over to the still-eating Dark Mage, "Tharja."

She looked up at him and gestured with her shoulders in a 'what?' gesture.

"I'm gonna head out, work with Saeko, keep yourselves safe."

She swallowed and frowned, "You don't own me."

"Consider it a favour then." He said with a shrug.

"What do I get out of it?" The dark haired woman asked with a smirk.

His face fell flat and his gave his best dry tone, "You get to keep living in my house."

Without another word he turned into black smoke and disappeared.

Tharja grumbled into her cup, "Smartass."

Saeko smiled to herself, "Someone enjoys having the last word."

**Elsewhere - Two Days Later**

The further one got away from Axel the more the countryside became monster-infested.

Zachary's body lit up with magic as he used **Resistance; Lightning **on himself and threw back his hood, he stood under the shade of a tree and knelt down, immediately turning transparent.

His current target was a quadrupedal wyvern that was sunning itself in the middle of a slightly worn road.

A quadruped wyvern was in the same classification as a normal wyvern, it was classed as a **Proto-Dragon** something in the family, but not actually strong enough - magically and genetically - to become a true dragon.

It had four powerful legs covered in a thick leathery hide that was dark as ink, dotted with dark blue scales, and with a pale blue underbelly, it's face was an oddity in that it opened up vertically and horizontally, a quartet of dark blue eyes looked in every direction, and a thick sack sat under its chin filled with poison.

Like a frog, it croaked, but instead of making noise to communicate, it's croaking signified that it was basically brewing all the bacteria in it's venom sack into a more potent poison.

Placing down a frost trap he fired off a shot directly next to the creature waking it up, the wyvern woke up angrily and hissed at him, he took three steps back and laughed at it, the creature leapt forward, easily clearing the twenty or so metres between them.

It landed with one of its bulky forepaws directly in the trap, immediately its entire body was covered in a frozen tomb.

Zachary sighed out and leaned forward, his right hand swathed with green energy, as he activated **Tame Beast** he frowned as his mind crashed into the wyverns.

Unlike more primal creatures like wolves and birds, wyverns had a sliver of intellect to them, nothing good enough to really do much, but like crows and other such creatures they were exceptional natural problem solvers, though most creatures were still dumber than octopi.

Generally it was accepted that they were about as smart as a small human child.

Which was not worrying at all.

The ice melted abruptly as the creature continued forward but collapsed against the ground, unconscious.

Zac frowned but shrugged, pulling out his Phantom Knife he spun it in his hand and stabbed the creature in the brain, apparently the spell just didn't take with draconians, and instead seemed to melt their brains.

Which was… confusing, as it was supposed to just be repelled on things that it didn't work on.

"I guess I have an Anti-Dragon spell now? How weird…" He shrugged and pulled his hood back up, swapped his Phantom Knife for his skinning knife and getting to work.

**Skinning +1**

**Skinning +1**

**Skinning +1**

It took a while.

**Skinning (Journeyman) 81/150**

Zachary stood up and slid his skinning knife into the sheath, but sunk back into the brush when he heard heavy wingbeats, with a massive gust of a wind a dragon swept down and snatched the bloodied wyvern body off the ground, leaving a trench about as wide as Zac for each of its talons.

The beast was like a force of nature, no-it was a force of nature.

"Amy chase the dragon!" A voice shouted out, followed by a string of **Lightning Bolt**s.

Massive streaks of blue lightning flashed around the road, making Zachary balk in his bush, he disappeared into black smoke before appearing on the other side, away from whoever it was that was casting like a dickhead.

Quickly followed by a distinctly male serpent-humanoid with the lower body of a massive black and green snake, with a large oaken bow and a string of daggers across his chest.

The snake-man drew a shot back and fired off at the enormous dragon, somehow hitting it in the back flank and twisted its tail before smacking it on the ground, hissing out, "**Sticks to Snakes!**"

The arrow turned into a venomous snake that continued biting at the dragon.

The other man, with long shaggy purple hair wearing a suit of shining silver, scaled armour. He bore four massive bat wings flared out behind him, leapt into the air and produced two ethereal swords from seemingly nowhere.

"**Excalibur Rapidly!**" His body began to shift rapidly as though someone had hit fast forward on him specifically, the man zipped after the dragon like it owed him money, however the massive - now identified as red - Dragon curled in on itself and flew back towards the winged man with fury.

A massive stream of fire burned like napalm, everything in front of the flying dragon was reduced to cinders, Zachary had to disappear several times to avoid being burned.

The fly man however, seemed completely unperturbed, his face bore a massive grin, "**Boost!**"

A mighty red gauntlet formed on his right arm and his entire body was coated in a shroud of red energy, he rushed the dragon and slashed four mighty gashes along its hide, the wounds glowed a vibrant blue from the sheer amount of magic infused with the summoned blades strikes.

The serpent man kept disappearing and reappearing, each time he would fire a **Black Arrow** that, from the looks of it, used his stealth skill as a multiplier for damage.

'_What the fuck is happening!?_' Zachary demanded as the dragon was brought to the ground by two people's efforts.

The winged man let go of the air beneath his wings and plummeted down screaming in glee as his blades dug into the dragon's neck, it released a rattle of agony, trying to shake him off.

The man merely laughed loudly, and screamed the heavens as suddenly lightning struck around him, "**Transfer!**"

The sudden storm struck with mighty bolts directly into the winged man, and through him into the dragon, it screeched in agony as the lightning surged across its body, twitching and spasming for a few seconds before steadying itself and releasing an earth-quaking roar that threw the man off it and forced the snake to tumble tail over head.

The dragon was surrounded by a wall of fire that spawned dozens of dragonlings that all began to swarm around the winged man, who - quote - 'yeeted outta that'.

"Connie!" Hissed out the serpent man, almost immediately a massive figure came stumbling out of the forest.

It was a gaunt looking serpent humanoid with long arms and legs, a whip like tail and bulbous eyes, a Broodguard a creature created by the Yuan Ti - a race of serpent humanoids - to guard their lairs.

Connie was followed by six other guards, all of them wielding heavy battle-axes and swathed in red, ill fitting robes.

Zachary looked on with genuine awe as the dragon, being accosted by half a dozen and then some lizard men, a snake with a bow, and a winged demon of some kind, didn't even entertain the idea of fleeing.

The dragon huffed as golden magic coated it's body.

"It's healing!" The Demon said with a grin.

"Then fucking stop it!" Shot back the Snake.

"**Boost!**" Roared the Demon, dismissing his weapons in favour of rocketing towards the dragon, red first forward, "**Branding Smite!**"

A flash of unholy energy signalled a cyclonic barrel around the Demon, as he reared back his fist and slammed his red gauntlet directly into the dragon's head, a flash of black magic burned a brand of some devlish creation upon its scale.

The Broodguards marched foward, having slaughtered the dragonlings wholesale, coated in blood and guts they set upon the red dragon with gusto, hacking away at it's right foreleg with reckless abandon.

The Snake drew back a shot with three arrows ready, each arrow glowed an eerie purple colour, and seemed to emit a smoke of some kind.

"**Life-Hunt**." Zachary said, enough chaos happening around him that it wouldn't matter, he looked at the Dragon's life force and saw it just on the cusp of death, with a grin that would send a nun running he unfolded Thori'dal and took a deep breath.

"**Aimed Shot!**"

A massive azure spear shot through the trees, cleaved six of the seven Broodguards in twain and curved up to slam into the dragons lower jaw, the spear stuck out of its cranium, it's eyes bugged out of its head.

"**Arcane Shot!**" This was closely followed by a brilliant purple arrow that caused the head, the soggy meat that was the guards, and the demon man to be captured in the explosion that rocked both the landscape, and their worlds.

The light died down, revealing ashes and gore splattering the grounds in equal measure, the Dragon's head fell onto the ground and kicked up a small cloud of ashes that used to be the broodguard.

"A body has been discovered!" A voice from within the smoke said, stepping out was the Demon. He was definitely scuffed up, two of his wings were badly burnt and some of his hair from the right side of his head was missing.

"Like the phoenix itself, I Mephistopheles have risen from the ashes!" The man said grandly, his wings folding away into his body, with a glow of unholy light upon his fingers any noticeable ounce of harm from his person disappeared, **Lay on Hands**.

His armour was relatively fine which confused Zachary, it must have been something pretty ridiculous to survive a blast like that without so much as a scuff.

"So on a scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think you are?" Mephistopheles asked, hands on his hips.

The red gauntlet, the swords, they all seemed very familiar.

"Are you two reincarnates? Because that's some straight up fucking anime bullshit right there." Zachary said instead of answering, point at the gauntlet, "Walking around with a fuckin' **Boosted Gear** like it's totally fine."

Meph' actually seemed pleased with the question, "Ah! You're from the same place? Nice!"

'Amy' looked annoyed and confused, "What are you two talking about?"

"Reincarnate though? Nah, I just woke up in some goddamn forest with a magic ring that talked to me that turns out was actually some magical bullshit. Then I found Amy and a few mates and we started killing things for money… still don't know why I look the way I do." Meph' mused aloud, a grin on his face.

'_I'm so lost._' Zac thought to himself, "So you just… woke up here, without any idea of how you got here?"

"That's about the long and short of it yeah." Mephistopheles admitted with a chuckle, "Did you know Satan is fuckin' real? 'Cus we got even more magical bullshit from him-And eternal life dude, it's fucking rad!"

"Satan? You just… know Satan?" Zachary was flabbergasted, he wasn't used to be so out of the loop, it felt like there was an entire extra level of shit going on that he didn't even know about.

"Oh yeah, apparently he got really bored so decided to offer us a job. Turns out we're very good at being big evil dicks." Meph admitted this with a conspiratorial wink and a big smile, "Dude I broke into a church though the stainglass windows and killed a fucking priest!"

'Amy' grinned and flared his hood, "That was very fun, while he was going in the back, I went in the front and shot an Angel in the neck."

"Fucking sniped the guy, no on even noticed him!" Gushed Meph', this was followed by raucous laughter.

"But why though?" Zachary asked, he felt he had to at that point.

"They had a shard of Excalibur, Satan really wants them for some reason or another. Though considering how much he does, he keeps giving them to us." Meph admitted, summoning a blade that was half-way between a long knife and a sword, the air around it seemed to buzz with energy, the hilt was wrapped in golden silken cloth and the pommel was a ring with an hourglass in the middle.

Amy presented a black blade that looked like a jagged bolt of lightning forged into metal, it had no guard, and a black wrapped hilt with a horses head as the pommel.

"'Tis quite odd, but one assumed it best to avoid questioning a creature such as he." Amy said with a nod to his peer.

It became rapidly apparent that Zachary was very much outgunned, along with the fact that it was probably either these two or 'Satan' that had been corrupting the land around the area, which… would make things much less easy.

Was it possible that it was the Demon King masquerading as someone else, but that would mean that he had access to christian mythology, which in itself presented the awkward idea that the King was someone much like himself, from the Old World.

He glanced at Mephistopheles and found a weight in his gut, something about the smiling demon made him incredibly ill, there was a definitive wrongness to him, like he _shouldn't_ be here.

"So, what's with the kill-stealing." The Demon asked with a savage look on his face.

'_I must flee._'

**End.**

**Was playing Fire Emblem, finished it twice already, good game. Highly reccomend.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	22. Chapter 22

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 50/100**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 192 Dexterity: 246**

**Constitution: 181 Intelligence: 78**

**Wisdom: 99 Luck: 140]**

**['Mephistopheles' Lv. ?/?**

**Mid-Class Devil Knight/Warlock/Paladin**

**Strength: 350 Dexterity: 421**

**Constitution: 541 Intelligence: 109**

**Wisdom: 120 Luck:999]**

**[Amethystine 'Amy' Lv. ?/?**

**Mid-Class Devil/Assassin**

**Strength: 231 Dexterity: 731**

**Constitution: 120 Intelligence: 99**

**Wisdom: 80 Luck: 89]**

"So. What's the deal banana peel?" Mephistopheles asked with a progressively more dangerous looking smile on his face, "I mean, not only did you kill steal a _dragon_ you also took out all of Amy's broodguard, which he'd spent a few months getting. Not a lot of people that can handle a transformation potion like that."

"Forty useless humans. And now the only strong ones are dead." Amy said with a ferocious hiss, the levity of their reminiscing had been spoiled by reality unfortunately.

"We put a lot of goddamn work into molding this area, collecting the pieces, working to spread our influence, you've got some balls." Meph' sneered acidily.

GIving up on niceties, Zachary shrugged "Well when one sees a snake with a bow, and a fucking demon chasing a dragon, one generally doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I don't know what you two have been smoking with the whole Satan thing, but the fact that you don't belong here bothers me. Because if you aren't a reincarnate means you're something else."

Thori'dal's wings flared out and Zachary shot the Demon with a **Concussive Shot** launching him into the trees, quickly he drew back an **Arcane** **Shot** and took off Amy's left arm in a wash of magical energy, the creature hissed and coiled in on itself.

Zachary crouched but as he did he used **Silent Image** to make dozens of copies of himself around the area, all aiming their bows towards the Snake and the quickly approaching Demon.

Next he used **Fly** and shot up into the air, while he crouched in shadows he became invisible, technically the shadow in his hood counted so he was a man, that wasn't really there, floating in mid air.

Meph lashed out like a mad beast screaming **Boost** in such a way it was amazing he'd not gone hoarse immediately, he rushed the archer with a reared back punch at one of his copies.

Zachary dropped down on the serpent whilst his friend was busy, his eyes flashing dangerously, his Phantom Knife glinted in the light, he activated **Ambush** and used **Ten **and **Chi** to imbue himself with the properties of Heaven and Earth, his arm exploded in a surge of electricity that quickly funneled down into his long knife.

Mephistopheles raged as he smashed copy after copy, his ears twitched for a moment and he turned on his heel to see a spar in the air, without another moment to think he threw out his arms, a ring of unholy light being drawn in the ground by his magic.

"**Shield of the Fiend!**" A bulwark of brilliant red energy encapsulated himself and his friend, a massive crash signalled the fall of something, the shield was piercing but his comrade wasn't exactly dead.

A flash of lightning momentarily blinded Meph' but he blinked it away, his new foe was standing above his serpentine friend menacingly.

Mephistopheles wouldn't be cowed, however.

"You think you've got the stuff to stop a god!" Snapped Meph with a furious glare, "I will take my mantle and there's not a goddamn thing in the world that can stop me!"

Without any other words he shot forward, once again speeding up like someone had hit fast forward, his fist slammed into the Beastmaster's stomach and sent him up into the sky, which he quickly followed.

Mephistopheles's wings exploded out about mid-jump, he summoned his Excalibur and slashed at the Hunter with reckless abandon, "**Searing Smite!**"

Fire exploded along the wraith-like blade and Zachary quickly twisted two parry the strike with Thori'dal's guard, the Demon snarled furiously, but couldn't respond as the Hunter summoned and threw an **Explosive Trap** in his face, the bear-trap snapped shut around his face and blew up like a small star, sending both men flying away from one another.

Zachary spun and spun in the air before managing to right himself, thankful for the fact that he didn't have a working internal system so he didn't get dizzy, drawing another shot he fired off an **Arcane Shot** at the Demon.

The purple lance of magic shot through the air with an audible sizzling-whistle, only for a purple door to open in front of the shot and behind him, Zachary's body boiled with agony as his back took the full brunt of his own attack.

Another purple door opened behind him and Meph appeared through it, he grabbed the arm that held Thori'dal with both hands and pressed his leg against the Vampire's back, with a mighty roar the Devil pulled the Vampire's right arm clean off.

Zachary screamed like he'd never screamed before, the Devil reared back and smashed him on the top of the head with his own arm, sending the undead careening back onto the ground.

Landing on the ground, a few metres off the road, he lay in a puddle of his own blood crying inconsolably.

Meph landed over him, "You took off my friends arm, so I returned the favour."

Throwing the useless limb down next to the vampire, the Devil's Excalibur set aflame once more, "Now you get to go the way of the dodo."

Probably not the most intimidating thing to say.

"**Exhilaration!**" Healing energy surged around vampire, he swiped the descending blade with his Phantom Knife, knocking it away, once more the Devil hissed at being parried, Zachary used **Misty Step **to put some room between himself and the winged man.

With a steady breath Zachary, one arm down, grimaced but steeled himself.

Black magic flashed across his arm as he waved his hand, spawning a **Murder of Crows** and whislted to summon all of his beasts.

Jeremy the Giant joined his magically conjured kin, they swarmed around the demon with goals of godhood, whilst Rumple and Swiss howled with the potency of rolling thunder, boosting the attack and critical rate of all allies within earshot.

Finally LaCroix appeared, having burrowed out of the ground and snapped up the serpent without a word. Immediately impressions of Amy's struggle were pressed against LaCroix's stomach but the giant toad barely blinked in response.

Zachary cast a cursory **Mend Pet** on LaCroix and the toad's eyes visibly creased with pleasure.

Darting away in the chaos Zachary retrieved his arm and with it his legendary weapon.

He couldn't exactly _use_ his bow with one arm but he wasn't gonna leave it to rot.

Stashing it away in his bag of Holding he barked an order over his shoulder.

"**Kill Command!**" Rumple, Swiss and Jeremy were all suddenly taken into bloodlust and darted directly towards the Demon with the intent of making a meal of him, Jeremy's talons ripped into his jugular, making the Demon screech in agony.

Rumple pinned the arm bearing the gauntlet by the elbow, and whilst he couldn't break the armour that Mephistopheles wore, he did get a very satisfying crunch for the sheer amount of pressure exerted by his jaw.

Swiss just straight up ripped off his bottom jaw.

Like, _off_-off my guy.

Zachary got a very familiar rush of energy in his gut, with a roar of his own he activated **Bestial Wrath**, each of his pets growing to about twice their size, Jeremy's beak became serrated and his entire body emitted a black smoke.

Rumple and Swiss's backs became more arched and pronounced, their teeth becoming wicked and black, whilst their legs were all covered in bladed spines.

LaCroix's soft amphibian skin became dense and scaley, with a pair of horns rising from behind his bulbous eyes.

Rushing back towards the battle, Zachary leapt forward like a burning red ray of light and sank his fangs into the Demon's neck, drinking the heady cocktail of hellish magic and enriched blood.

Each mouthful he drank his beasts became more and more violently driven, the rabid howls of his wolves were only shadowed by the cacophony of crow screeches.

Suddenly Zachary was hit with vertigo, he was feeding like a starved animal and the next he was on his back next to his toad.

He snapped up at the sound of his wolves whimpering, and the sound of cracking bone.

Standing over the maimed demon man was what one could only describe as a dark deity.

He had resplendent black and red armour with large blue gems imbedded in the shoulders and forearms, his steps were followed by flames, and his eyes burned like sulphurous pits.

Instead of a crown he had a ring of flames floating between a pair of large horns, his very presence screamed into the souls of those who looked upon him.

It immediately drew Zachary out of whatever haze he was in, fear lancing him directly through the heart.

The man looked down at his protege, who was still alive somehow, with a snap of his fingers Meph's wounds disappeared and he looked to be simply sleeping.

Those burning eyes turned to the Vampire, seemingly inspecting him and finding him wanting, "You'll do for now."

Zachary didn't want to know what he meant by that, to be completely honest.

The King - for calling him anything else felt impossibly rude - looked to LaCroix who had waddled forward somewhat, "You managed to kill one of my new projects, so I'll give you some credit."

The King pointed at Zac and he felt his unbeating heart thunder in his chest, "You wanted some demonic blood right? Well I hope you enjoyed it, leech. Because it'll burn through you like fire." The man took off his glove and slashed his wrist, a fountain of impossibly blue blood flew from the wound directly into the vampires face.

He was all but drowned in ecstasy as his eyes rolled back and his hood was pushed off, the sunlight not even bothering him, despite the burning of his skin it caused.

"You'll be a good measuring rod for my project. One of you will kill the other. You did make the mistake of taking his friend from him, he was quite lonely." The King chuckled as he put his glove back on, "You'll regret that."

A hellish doorway opened up behind the King, an unseen tail snaked out from his armour and grabbed the downed Aasimar.

He walked through without another word. Leaving two kicked dogs, a spooked crow, a sleepy toad and an unconcious, on fire, vampire behind him.

**Nighttime - Lunasvale outskirts**

The fanged skeleton that was once Zachary Waller jolted as flesh began to rapidly reconstruct around it, the right arm hadn't regenerated, what with the being burnt down to a spooky skeleton.

He jolted up, the night air dancing through his hair, looking around he was greeted with a pair of sleeping giant wolves, a giant crow that was hopping about looking for shiny things, and a sleeping toad.

Rubbing his head with his remaining arm he moaned pittifully.

With a wave of his hand he dismissed his pets and stood up, he hadn't expected to walk back to Axel with his tail between his legs but then again he also didn't expect to get into a fight.

"That's greed for ya, I guess." He muttered, looking at the space where his arm wasn't, "I wonder if it'll actually grow back, I mean… all my everything else did."

"I know what the cause of corruption is, so I suppose I technically succeeded."

Fishing into his Bag of Holding he produced a small white stone with a blue swirl in the centre of it, a **Hearthstone** that would return someone home, it had a cooldown of several days so it was really only useful in situations where one was quite far from their home, and just wanted to get back quickly.

He rubbed the stone three times and it slowly began to glow, it would take a few seconds for it to actually activate.

Sighing he slumped slightly, "How the fuck am I gonna explain any of this?"

The blue glow began to get brighter as he was swallowed by a flash of light, it would make for an interesting chat, he was sure.

**End**

**Lemme know if you enjoyed, I figured having an actual reoccuring antagonist would be more interesting.**

**Hope it was enjoyable, catcha later boys.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	23. Chapter 23

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 53/100**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 95 Dexterity: 255**

**Constitution: 81 Intelligence: 278**

**Wisdom: 201 Luck: 10]**

**Curse of the Devil King - Befouled Blood has been forced upon you, giving you a demonic aura that will make those of a Purer inclination less trusting towards you.**

**Curse of Enmity - one other creature that wishes you harm, on this plane of existence is always aware of your location, (Decreases Luck).**

**Maimed By A Devil - The loss of one of your limbs, as caused by a Devil that hated you, has decreased your Constitution and Strength substantially.**

**Devil Blooded** **\- Having ingested dozens of litres of Demonic Blood your Corruption has increased greatly, however your spiritual attributes have increased exponentially.**

**Grave Devil - Your Vampiric blood has been boiled down into the hellish vitae you've ingested, you gain a bonus to Dark Magic and Fire Magic.**

Zachary felt like hell.

His body had a feverish pitch to it that he'd all but lost the ability to recognise as sickness.

One thing that made him feel even worse was the looks he would doubtless receive.

When he returned to Axel via **Hearthstone** he was brought directly to the guild, and it was somewhat pandemonious that it was registered to it.

Given the lack of one arm, people were immediately curious.

The fact that it was the evening had meant the guild was packed with the dinner rush, and having one of their more renowned Hunter's appear and collapse was cause for concern.

Luna approached first, kneeling next to the maimed man and rolling him over, his face was… actually it had more colour than usual, when he wasn't wearing that awful hood he was pallid and almost sickly pale.

But somehow, the healthy flush in his cheeks made her more concerned, given that it also involved all the veins in his neck and face bulging violently, and pulsing.

The probably shouldn't be pulsing that much.

"A healer! I need a healer!" She called out, getting various looks in return.

Team Troubled Children was on the scene in a moment, Kazuma and Darkness rushing over followed by a lackadaisical Aqua and a slightly scared Megumin.

"What's wrong with him?" Kazuma asked rhetorically, looking at his… sort of friend with concern, the man was breathing raggedly and seemed to be sweating blue.

No one should be sweating blue.

Darkness felt a distinct wrongness when kneeling beside her friend, more so than usual. She was aware he'd become a creature of the night- intimately so - but whatever had happened to him put a distinct fear in her stomach at the mere sight of him.

Aqua hissed, "What the-this idiot! He's been consorting with demons!? He's got their stink all over him! Probably tried to drink their blood or something-get rid of him before something happens!"

The goddess - before intervention could be performed - used a powerful **Turn Evil** spell on the man, the scream he released chilled everyone to the bone, several backed away to the other end of the guild to avoid being near him.

Zachary's eyes snapped open, bleary and fevered, he quickly shot up and backed away from everyone, steadying himself against the wall as he heaved each breath like it was his last.

A wild look in his eyes, he looked directly at Aqua and squinted as though staring at direct sunlight.

"What did you do you stupid ass!?" Aqua demanded, stomping forward, her fist aglow with radiant energy that made him recoil at the sight.

"Fucking met Satan apparently!" He roared, a violent energy was in the air as he spoke, making everyone on edge.

"Ha, I knew it! You're definitely the wrong person to give this chance to, my stupid junior probably picked you by mistake trying to find someone better, someone that doesn't consort with devils!" The blue haired woman accused with vindication.

Zachary all but hissed, but kept his tongue in check for a moment so he could come up with something more rational to say.

"I bet that's why you ran off for so long, huh? Why you stay in Axel? So you can return to your little safe haven after each time you go out and do something progressively more evil, you're just a ticking time bomb! All it took was a little death and you came back with a bottle of evil and the will to get more of it!"

The pulsing of his veins grew in speed, some of them wriggled and writhed like snakes beneath his skin.

"You probably lost your arm as part of some deal right? Even gave up your artefact? For what I wonder… probably just power, idiots like you are so easy to lead by the nose." She chastised, like talking down to a child that had done something irresponsible.

Part of him did have to agree at least a little with her accusations, he was very power hungry. It was somewhat in his nature.

Didn't stop the _unyielding __**rage**_from all but burning a hole in his gut.

She reared back and swung her fist, alight with the divine power of a god, directly at his chest, aiming for the centre of mass was generally the best way to aim.

Not one to take anything lying down, Zachary lashed out with a leg and kicked her in the chin, at no point did he remember being that flexible but it didn't matter in the moment, Aqua stumbled back and hissed as she healed her busted lip.

"Everything I've done has been to clean up your mess!" Zachary snapped, stalking forward and booming like an angry god.

"You divine fucks are worthless! So worthless that even when you're here in Belzerg you can't even accomplish simple missions! The Demon King isn't even sitting in his fucking castle like everyone thinks, he's out and about, claiming little pet projects and using them to bolster his army, and what have _you _done?" He kicked her again, this time in the leg and swept her down onto the ground.

With a plated boot against her head he kept screaming, "Anything I could call you wouldn't do you justice, you vapid cunt!"

"**Turn Evil!**"

"FUCK!"

The blinding light filled his vision and burnt his skin, making him stumble back.

He punched a wall and howled in agony like a beast in a trap.

"You've got this power and you don't do anything with it-motherfucker that hurts!" Rumbled the man, before suddenly a hitch caught in his throat and he threw up.

What came out was some black liquid that smelt familiarly metallic, it was like old blood that remained in a liquid form.

"My body aches…" He muttered as he collapsed against the wall.

"Someone get a bucket!" Ordered Luna, one of the staff did just that and sat it next to the sickly man.

Luna moved towards him but kept roughly a foot or so between them, mostly to avoid whatever was coming out of him.

"What happened, Mr. Waller?"

Zachary gagged and huffed, keeping his eyes closed to avoid whatever pain they were causing him, "I went up to Lunasvale, I figured with my skills I could just keep low, stay hidden and see what was happening."

"The warning was put out for a reason." She chastised, a cross look on her face.

"I'm aware." He admitted with a frown, the eye strain of two back to back blasts of radiant energy making his head hurt, "When I got to the outskirts I saw two… people, attacking a dragon that was in the area. They were doing pretty well, but they clearly weren't good boys…"

His brow creased in concentration, "One was a dude with wings, bit bat wings. Four of them. That and he was working with a Yuan ti, and I'm pretty sure they're all bad dudes. Anyway, so a bunch of Broodguards come pouring down the road, apparently you need human sacrifices to make them-so I maintain that I did the right thing."

"And what was that?" Luna urged.

"Shot a fucking **Aimed Shot** at the dragon's head and nuked it with an **Arcane Shot**. Got kill credit, took out all the Broodguards and scared the shit out of the two of them." He laughed before frowning, looking at his not-arm.

"Oh…"

"Probably won't be doing that again anytime soon." Kazuma commented, getting a nod from the disheveled man.

"Anyway, they start talking to me, start getting all rowdy about how they're some amazing Devils that work for Satan - pretty sure it was the Demon King - they were running about collecting pieces of Excalibur- Kazuma they had DxD powers."

"For real?" The NEET asked, looking confused. That made things slightly more complicated.

"Yeah, **Boosted Gear**. Don't know about the snake man 'cus I killed him when things started to take a turn. Had LaCroix digest him… anyway, I got into a fight with Mephistopheles- why did you flinch?"

Luna looked slightly worried, but explained. "We've been getting reports that the beastman tribes and some of the villages surrounding Lunasvale have been converted to a new religion, with the head of it being a self-proclaimed god, Mephistopheles."

"_That_ explains the god comment." Zachary said with realisation, "But does it really matter though?"

"Have you ever heard of a process called Mantling?" Luna asked, a vague recollection twinkled in the back of Zac's mind but he couldn't really say he had, the blonde woman gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment.

"The process of Mantling it taking up a role, in most cases in the cosmic sense. If done well enough, and with enough people believing in it, the Mantler gains the power, image, and identity to an extent of whatever role they've taken up. Mephistopheles believes himself to be the next God of Change and Chaos."

"But there _isn't_ a god of Change and Chaos." Aqua cut in with a hiss.

"That's why it's so dangerous. No one can predict what will happen if he achieves apotheosis and takes that role." Luna countered gravely.

"So you fought him, right? He took your arm and left you for dead?" Kazuma asked, arms crossed.

Zachary chuckled morosely, "We were pretty even for a while, I'd keep him at a distance and he'd chase. But he managed to pull a few slippery tricks on me. We were in the air and he used **Dimension Door** to redirect my **Arcane Shot** at me. Then used it again to get behind me while I was reeling, and ripped off my arm… and then beat me into the ground with it."

Aqua laughed uproariously whilst Kazuma had a reflexive snicker but smothered it quickly.

The man hissed, "Anyway, when he came down to finish me off I healed and vanished. I summoned my beasts to put ground between him and me, they tore him apart… he was all but dead and then the big fucking bad appeared and kicked my dogs he said something or other…"

Zac shook his head, "I was honestly not really listening I was kinda fucking terrified."

"If it really was the Demon King, I'm not surprised." The Blonde receptionist said with a smile of pity.

"He must've been able to see what I was because he forced a fountain of blood down my throat and said something to the effect of… I'm not really sure to be honest. I think he wants to use me to agitate, Mephistopheles. All the blood rushing at me pushed my hood back and I started burning in the sunlight."

'_That should be enough information right? And not entirely incriminating._' Zachary thought, he'd purposely left out the parts that made him look like a thirsty monster, because frankly he wasn't willing to put up with the looks he'd get or the questions.

Also he was _really _good at lying through omission.

"So how're you back if you got toasted?" Kazuma felt compelled to ask.

"Sunlight doesn't kill me, just turns me into a spooky skeleton with long teeth, when I'm in the shade or the sun sets I regenerate." The man admitted, Kazuma gagged whilst Aqua sneered.

"Monster." Aqua rumbled.

"I will eat your heart." Zachary said with a plain severity, making the woman flinch back.

"You'd probably get indigestion." Kazuma waved him off, "So what now?"

"Well… I'm not totally sure if my arm with regenerate or not. So I'm gonna need to fiddle with my skills. Is there anyway to reset my points?" This he said to Luna, the woman nodded.

"It's a rather simple thing. Though it incurs a cost. That grows greater each time one resets."

"That's not really an issue. I'm probably only gonna do it the once." Zachary said with a frown.

"So, what will you do? What path will you pursue?" Darkness asked, speaking up for the first time.

"Well, magic only takes one arm to do. So if my arm doesn't grow back I'll just go with that. I can't exactly be a rogue with one arm, or a knight or something like that." Zachary said with a shrug.

"You're taking this pretty well." Kazuma noted.

"I'm holding out hope it'll just grow back." Zachary admitted with no small amount of anxiety in his voice.

"So what will you do about all those curses on you then, Mr. Villain?" Aqua asked smugly, "You can't exactly ask a priest to remove them, none would go near you."

Zachary's chest rumbled ominously, "I guess I'll live with them, because I'm not going to ask you for help."

He could probably ask Chris, if she didn't flip her lid.

Though he'd not seen her in quite a while so he didn't know how that would work.

"So are you done throwing up blood?" Kazuma asked, "Because it smells pretty bad."

Zachary frowned, and spat on his shirt, it gave off an audible hissing noise.

Kazuma looked at him with a half-lidded gaze, "You bastard."

"You're an idiot." A dry voice cut in.

At the door were Saeko and Tharja.

The Dark Mage approached him, shouldering past the others before kicking him in the side, "I should put you on a leash."

"Honestly at this point it might be for my own safety." Zachary admitted, she was unsure if he was serious of just teasing her.

Saeko knelt beside him, looking him over.

"You look like a mess." She diagnosed simply, getting a snort from him, "Would you like my help returning home?"

"I'd love your help." He nodded loopily.

The purple haired swordswoman tucked an arm around him and helped him to his feet, he leant into her which she shouldered easily.

Tharja met his gaze and smirked.

"I don't wanna hear it." He cautioned with a wag of his finger.

"What're you gonna do to stop me? You're… disarmed."

"Oh boo you, that's low hanging fruit." The man bit back, ignoring her cackle.

Saeko led him out and past the people that were crowding the exit.

Aqua looked at Kazuma and frowned.

"All that devil blood is going to do something, mark my words."

"Oh shut up you useless goddess. If he does actually try to eat you, I won't stop him." Kazuma dismissed.

**End**

**Hope you enjoyed.**

**Lemme know what you thought, reviews make me a happy boy.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


	24. Chapter 24

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 53/100**

**Beastmaster Hunter 25/ Ninja 10/Warlock 5**

**Strength: 95 Dexterity: 255**

**Constitution: 81 Intelligence: 278**

**Wisdom: 201 Luck: 10]**

Zachary took a day to himself, though listening to Tharja's bad attempts at humour grated on his nerves a little he was somewhat glad for the company.

His arm had started to regrow, which he was immensely pleased with, as of morning two of being disarmed he had his shoulder back, along with the arm down to the bicep, which was good enough he supposed.

He was quite certain that if he drank more blood he'd be able to use the energy to speed up the process but he was using the time off to decide what he'd do with his respecialization.

Sure, once his arm grew back he'd be set to be an archer again, which was perfectly acceptable.

But Ninja had to go, it was by in large useless to his entire approach to combat, and he had to think of what to do with his extra levels that he'd acquired.

He could invest more points into Hunter, but considering that the class had been maxed out, he figured it'd be best to try something else.

It was times like this he wished he'd chosen a more flexible weapon, sure as a magical implement he adored Thori'dal, and with all the good times and easy money the weapon had given him, he was quite invested in it.

But one did get a little bored of just sniping something and watching it either explode of disappear.

"Oh my god I'm an idiot." He thought, slapping his forehead.

"Mm, yes. Why?" Tharja agreed and asked, a small smirk on her face.

"Hexblade Warlocks, we draw magic from an item and use it as a catalyst for spells… Thori'dal can draw infinite amounts of magic into itself to always form arrows. All I have to do is fucking sit for a while and conjure some bullshit weapon."

"That sounds ridiculous." Tharja said with a scowl, "You're bow is ridiculous."

"Thank you darling." He said with a wave of his hand as he fished it out of his bag of holding, that he'd sat on the table.

The folded bow gleamed brilliantly as it was withdrawn, as though happy to be out.

"Right well… more points into Hexblade… that goes up to 10… then hmm."

"Considering you want to switch up your style, why not something martial focused?" Saeko suggested.

That was a good point, he supposed.

He put five more points into Warlock and chose his spells.

He grabbed **Dimension Door **and **Banishment** for his 4th level spells and **Hold Monster** and **Scrying** for his 5th level spells.

Sure, pretty much all of his spells were utility based, and he disliked it. But the selection wasn't exactly impressive.

Aside from that, **Dimension Door** could be used for fuckery, and **Banishment** meant that if he encountered a demon he could just send them off for a bit while he set up a way to ruin their fucking day.

Though he did get other spells to assist just for leveling into Warlock, these being **Phantasmal Killer**, **Staggering Smite**, **Banishing Smite** and **Cone of Cold**.

But Zac, why would you get two banishing spells?

Sometimes it's just easier to use magic words to send someone away.

He also got a catch-all **Curse** ability that did a few nifty things.

If he killed something that he'd **Curse**d then he'd absorb their life force, healing himself. If an afflictee decided to try and stab him, he could bend the dark magic he'd forced into them to unsteady their aim and even if they did hit him, his very presence exuded minor **Curse**s that would cause them harm.

He could also summon vengeful spirits of the dead to kill people for him, that was pretty metal.

He took all his levels in Ninja and put them into a new class entirely, **Dark Knight**.

Which was like Paladin, but edgier.

**Dark Knight** was basically what happened if you put a Dark Mage or a **Warlock** in full plate and gave them a fucking greatsword to stab people in the soul with.

It was also, pretty metal.

**Dark Knight** was only available to him because of his **Corruption** level, and the fact that apparently his soul had been '**Stained with Darkness**.' which was… interesting.

The class even came with a warning that a _lot_ of people didn't like them, even if they were effectively Chaotic Good Paladins. Who used the powers of the Abyss to fight the enemies of the weak, and innocent.

Effectively the world's most terrifying guardian of those that would be trod upon by those in power.

**Dark Knight** was an Advanced Class that had limited levels, like Warlock, so he could only drop 10 levels into it but considering that he had spare, he didn't mind.

**Skill Acquired!**

**Hard Slash - A solid, vertical strike that opens the target to a combination attack.**

**Siphon Strike - A sweeping strike that rips mana out of the target and feeds it to the Dark Knight, combos with Hard Slash.**

**Souleater - An impaling move that drains the life essence out of the target and feed it to the Dark Knight, combos with Siphon Strike, when used as the third in a chain, does critical damage.**

**Shadow Veil - Creates a barrier around the user that deflects magical attacks and pushes back any creature within five metres.**

**Abyssal Drain - Shoots forward an orb of dark energy that explodes and drains the life out of anything within 15 metres.**

**The Blackest Night - Absorbs all incoming damage and stores it before releasing it back at a target within sight. **

**Bloodspiller - Released a wave of dark magic from the weapon of the Dark Knight that reduces the magic defence of all that are hit by it.**

Quite a list, but they were pretty simple to understand and use. So he didn't mind.

He had a few levels left laying about and didn't really know what to do with them.

**[Zachary A. Waller Lv. 53/100**

**Hunter 25/ Dark Knight 10/Warlock 10**

**Strength: 105 Dexterity: 255**

**Constitution: 91 Intelligence: 281**

**Wisdom: 201 Luck: 10]**

When his arm finished growing back his physical stats would return to normal, though given that being a Hexblade Warlock his physical damage was based on his mental statistics, he wasn't exactly fussed.

Now he just needed to get a weapon to bond with-oh what's that he already had one prepared?

'_I almost completely fucking forgot about this sword._' He rummaged into his B.o.H and pulled out a long gleaming silver-white greatsword.

The same sword he'd gotten out of the chest at the lake.

"Do you just hoard random things?" Tharja asked, having seen him pull it out of the bag.

"Ya know, in a way I kinda do." Admitted the man with a chuckle.

He placed a hand on the blade and forced his magic into it, it began to crack and blister before exploding into shards, though they only went a few centimeters away from his hand before reforming into a ghostly replica of the blade.

With a wave of his hand he dismissed his newly bonded weapon and stood up, moving towards the centre of the living room.

He summoned the weapon and grinned broadly at the sight of it, it was all but weightless in his hand.

"Compensating?" Tharja snarked from her seat whilst Saeko allowed a small snicker.

"Wouldn't you like to know." He said distantly as he eyed the blade, the transparent blue reminded him of his Phantom Knife, though whereas his knife seemed to be made of magical ice or something akin to, his sword was a construct of pure magic, as he moved it about little motes of energy were left behind.

It was like moving a glow stick, which was pretty dope.

"You look like a little boy who's fallen in love for the first time." Saeko said with a smile on her face.

Zac just laughed, striking a pose and leaning back whilst his sword floated beside him, "Am I cool now?"

"_Absolutely_ not." Tharja with a wrinkled nose said in an almost scolding tone.

Saeko laughed fully and brightly whilst the blond man guffawed.

"But Jojo it's my Stand, **[Don't Fear the Reaper!]**" Dropping his voice into a bassier tone he struck another pose.

Saeko covered her mouth and snorted, her cheeks rosy from smiling so much and laughing.

Tharja did not get the joke and so huffed, "You're ridiculous."

"That's your new favourite word isn't it?"

A book was thrown at him for his mockery.

**Axel - Nighttime**

Zachary left the house, his cloak worn in such a way that it covered his healing side.

His little self-imposed mission tonight was to find out what in the fresh hell was happening to him.

He didn't want Tharja or Saeko freaking out but he was able to eat again, like normal things. And he felt generally healthier.

That was a problem as far as he was concerned, Vampire he understood easily enough, drink blood don't go out into the sun, no probs bob.

He entered Wiz's shop and waved at the brunette proprietress with a small smile, she grinned brightly at the sight of him, "Welcome back Mr. Zac!"

"Just Zac, Wiz. You're probably older than I am." The man said with a shake of his head, she tilted her head a little but nodded nonetheless. "I was wondering if you could help me with a question."

"Of course, I'll do my best." Wiz said with a small smile and summoned a chair for him to sit on.

He filled her in on what had happened, amused that she was taking notes, and gave her a pretty basic overview of the fight he'd had with Meph.

She tapped the pencil she was using against her chin in thought, "Well… typically if a Devil wants to curse someone, they'll feed them their blood. Usually this initiates a transformation into a… lesser Devil, to put it in layman's terms. Though given that you drink blood anyway, it does make things a little more complicated."

"How much more complicated?" He asked slightly anxious.

"Well, given that you're able to eat human food again, do you still feel cravings for blood?" She asked curiously.

Zachary thought about it and shrugged, "I mean… sort of? It's not like an addiction I had and I'm getting withdrawals, but more like a food that I enjoyed."

Wiz nodded, she cast a few spells on him, like **Identity Creature**, **Identify Planar Creature** and just a basic **Identify**.

The Lich hummed in thought, "So, essentially what is happening is that you're less a vampire and more a Devil with vampiric abilities… So I'd advise avoiding churches and priests. Because their exorcisms will work on you like they do me."

Zachary sighed, but perked up somewhat, "So I can go out in the sun right? That's a win."

"I'd advise waiting until you're fully healed and then some before trying that. Just to be on the safe side." Wiz said sympathetically.

"Anything else?"

"Expect some extra growths. If what you said was true, and this was the Demon King - or Devil King depending on who you ask - then both Mephistopheles and 'Amy' were completely different species and both ended up with wings. Given just how much blood you ingested you should expect a few extra things, maybe a tail." Wiz informed, looking somewhat critically at the man before her.

"Also I'd get someone to watch you, Devils are born and made evil. So you may need people checking your impulses." Wiz suggested, as gently as she could.

"Fuck." The green eyed man sagged into his chair, hiding his face behind his hand.

"There are a few practical upsides though, when you're fully healed you'll be much stronger than you were before."

"How does this even work, I drank all kinds of things and never had to deal with this before." Zachary complained petulantly.

Wiz smiled patiently, "Because the Demon King is an Ascended Being, he operates much like gods. And is able to… break the rules, somewhat. It's actually something he does quite frequently, most of his higher ups are people he made into Devils to command his armies."

"So an entire group of Mephistopheles'." Zac said, sagging like he had no bones, Wiz nodded as he whined and sunk onto the floor pitifully.

"I don't wanna."

Wiz knelt next to him and pat his head, "Now-now, you only need to worry if you indulge too much. Make sure you keep a steady head and you'll be fine."

"So if I'm a good boy I'll remain a good boy." He said, rolling over to lean on his side, propping up his head with his arm and striking the 'paint me like your french girl' pose.

"Essentially." Wiz said with a sweet smile.

He nodded, thinking for a moment before standing up and pointing to the door, "Through that door is the world, and I get a reality breaking wish if I save it. But right now, I'm gonna go and fuck a succubus because I am backed up and stressed!"

He strode like he'd said something incredibly poinant, Wiz blinked owlishly in response to the sudden change in attitude.

"Fare thee well Wiz, I will return anon to catch that booty!"

The door shut behind him and the Lich remained gobsmacked before what he said registered in her head and she quickly busied herself to rid her imagination of tawdry things.

**End**

**Hope you enjoyed.**

**Gonna keep it light for a bit before dipping into some dark and dreary.**

**If you've got some questions send 'em my way though I did try to catch the ones I thought people might have in the chapter.**

_**Raxychaz!**_


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